44. Salt-pans, with Le Croisic in the distance.These salt-pans, cut out into small squares, have the appearance of one great chess-board, interspersed with occasional hamlets and woods. The working of them employs the whole population of the district.They consist of large basins, dug at different depths, into which the water of the sea is introduced, and are divided into squares called "œillets." The salt-water is turned upon the marsh by canals styled "étiers," edged with narrow paths or roads called "bossis," elevated, some of them, three or four feet above the marsh; on these the newly collected salt is generally laid. The water passes by a subterranean conduit, the "coëf," into the "vasière,"[pg 234]where the first evaporation takes place; and then successively into the "cobiers," "fares," and "adernemètres," until it flows finally into the "œillets," where the salt is definitively formed. Each "œillet" is about 20 feet by 30. The heat of the sun and the wind effect the evaporation, which the paludier assists by stirring the water from time to time. The salt which forms on the surface resembles a kind of white cream, and exhales an agreeable perfume resembling violets. This is the finest salt; that which falls to the bottom of the salt-pan is of a greyish cast. The salt when formed is then scraped off, drained, and the women collect it and stack it on the "bossis" into conical heaps, which they cover with a coating of clay, to render them impervious to weather. In the salting season, the salt marshes with their innumerable hillocks of white salt have the appearance of a vast tent-covered camp. Each "œillet" produces about 150 lbs. of salt. The same salt-pans are worked from century to century by the same "paludiers" or their descendants. The proprietors may change, but the workmen remain, considering the salt-pans their prescriptive inheritance. For payment, they receive one-fourth of the salt. The dress of the paludier is a smock-frock of irreproachable whiteness, with pockets, white shoes, gaiters, and linen breeches, an enormous black flap hat turned up on the side in a point or horn. The[pg 235][pg 236][pg 237]young man wears the point over the ear, the married turns it behind, and the widower in front. We reached the Bourg de Batz in time for vespers, and had an opportunity of seeing the people in their Sunday dress. The men wear three or four cloth waistcoats, all of different lengths, so as to let the various colours, red, white, and blue, with which they are bound, appear one above the other in tiers, a muslin turnover collar, full plaited breeches[pg 238]of fine cloth tied at the knee by garters of floating ribbon, white woollen stockings with worked clocks and light yellow shoes, their flap hats ornamented with a roll of chenille of varied colours. The headdress of the women is singular and most intricate. The hair, in two rolls, twisted round with white tape, forms a kind of coronet across their heads; over this, a piece of net is drawn tight, forming a sort of cap, describing a peak behind, and crossing in front like a handkerchief.45. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his working dress.The dress consists of several petticoats of cloth plaited, red body, turned-up sleeves, and large coloured bibs or plastrons which they call "pièces," of the same stuff as their dresses. The girls' aprons are plain, without pockets, but the women's are of coloured silk, some of a rich brocade. A shawl with fringed border completes the costume. Some of the women had their heads and shoulders wrapped up in a triangular, black, shaggy sheepskin mantle; these were widows.At the inn where we alighted, they keep the splendid costumes worn by the people at weddings and other great occasions; and, by paying them for their trouble, they will put them on for inspection. The bride's costumes are of great magnificence; they array themselves in three different dresses on their wedding-day. First, a gown of white velvet, with apron of moire antique; secondly, one of violet[pg 239]velvet; and the third equally costly. Embroidered sleeves, the "pièce" of cloth of gold, the petticoats looped up with a wide sash, embroidered in gold, and gold clocks to the stockings.46. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his wedding dress.We were shown a state bed, or "lit de mariage," a tall four-post, painted red, with green reps tester and curtains, embroidered with yellow chenille. The great sign of wealth is to have the bedding reach to the top of the bedstead. To effect this,[pg 240]the base is formed of bundles of vine-stalks, over which is spread the straw, and when this scaffolding has been raised some feet, a paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind of lace or cutwork.The houses are solidly built of granite, and slated; the windows large. The furniture is good, generally comprising a well-waxed carved oak armoire, upon which are arranged earthenware plates of various colours.The paludiers of Batz preserve their original type distinct from the peasants of the environs; and form, like the Jews, a separate people, intermarrying among themselves, retaining their own peculiar manners and customs. They are supposed to descend from a Saxon colony. The paludier is tall in stature; their women remarkable for their fair complexions, which contrast strongly with their sunburnt neighbours. They are loyal and devout, true to their word, courageous and enduring; though the paludier is miserably poor, from the oppressiveness of the salt-tax, he never complains. Begging is unknown. Their food consists of rye bread, porridge of black corn, potatoes, and shellfish.[pg 241]They are sober, and drink wine in small quantities.Formerly the salt was distributed over the adjacent provinces by means of "saulniers," the journeymen labourers of the paludiers. Dressed in their picturesque costume, with a train of mules, whose tinkling bells announced their arrival, the saulnier was welcomed in every village where he sold his salt or exchanged it for other merchandize. "Le sucre des pauvres," as salt has been aptly called, was severely taxed under the old régime; distributions of the "sel royale" were yearly made by the Government among the gentry of the provinces, but the poor, who had no such privileges, severely felt the oppression, and smuggling was consequently extensively carried on, and the "faux saulnier," with his double bag across his shoulders, secretly sold salt upon which the gabelle had not been paid. With a faux saulnier originated the great peasant rising in Brittany, the Chouan war; a war to which Napoleon said, "All preceding wars have been but games." Jean, father of the four brothers Cottereau, was a maker of wooden shoes, and lived in a forest near Laval (Maine). From his solitary life he had acquired such sombre, wild, melancholy habits, that people gave him the name of Chouan, Maine patois for Chat-huant, and his family received the sobriquet long before the insurrection of 1792. Jean[pg 242]Cottereau was the most celebrated faux saulnier of Maine; he had accidentally killed a revenue officer in one of his encounters, and his heroic mother made a journey to Versailles, barefooted, "sur le cuir de ses pieds," to obtain his pardon. Jean's master and patron was guillotined, his two sisters shared the same fate, and one of his brothers died of his wounds, and his body was disinterred by the Revolutionists. These personal wrongs, the treatment of the King, the interdiction of the Catholic religion, its processions, its bells, the persecution of its ministers, all goaded the Breton peasantry to revolt; and Jean was the first to fire a gun against a Republican at the cry of "Vive le Roi." The rising began with a few peasants, armed with a gun or a stick, dressed in short breeches open at the knee, with leather gaiters, and coloured garters; their long hair streaming over the shoulders, their heads covered with a wide-brimmed hat, or brown or red cap, sabots tipped with iron, and, in cold weather, a loose coat of goatskin. The Chouans assembled in small bands and attacked the Republicans at night in ambuscade, and when they had killed a few "Bleus" disappeared among the corn-fields or the furze-bushes. Simple peasants, they fought against the Republicans in defence of the altar and the throne. Their "commandements" ran thus:—[pg 243]“Ton Dieu, ton Roy, tu servirasJusqu'à la mort fidèlement.Docile à tes chefs tu seras,Afin de vaincre surement.Sobre et discret te montreras,Buvant peu, parlant rarement;De ton chef jamais n'agirasAttendant le commandement;Violemment rien ne prendras,Mais en payant exactement.Age et sexe respecteras,Etant soldat et non brigand.Les comités corrigeras,Et les mouchards chrétiennement;Né Breton, tu n'oublieras,Afin d'agir loyalement.Dans le succès clement seras;Dans le malheur, ferme et constant.Chaque jour ton Dieu tu prieras;Que peux tu sans son bras puissant?”Such were the first Chouans: they had no organisation until they followed Larochejaquelin and the Vendean army to Granville, and accompanied them in their retreat; when their numbers were materially increased and their character completely changed by the deserters and brigands, who joined and eventually succeeded the peasantry.The church of Batz is of cut stone. It has a square tower, surmounted by a cupola steeple, which with that of Le Croisic serves as a landmark to vessels having to steer between the two dangerous rocks Le Four, in front of Le Croisic, and Les Blanches, situated near the mouth of the Loire.[pg 244]The choir is inclined, like that of St. Pol and others in Brittany. On one of the bosses in the interior is a grotesque carving of a man torn to pieces by the seven capital sins. On others are the Santa Veronica, the Good Shepherd, Ste. Barbara, &c. Near the church are the pretty ruins of the chapel of Notre Dame-du-Mûrier.We drove on to Le Croisic, in Breton, "Little Cross;" so called from the small chapel of the Crucifix, built to commemorate the baptism by St. Felix, Bishop of Nantes, in the sixth century, of the Saxon colony who occupied the peninsula. Le Croisic was one of the first towns in Brittany which received Christianity, and bears for its arms a cross between four ermines. Along the road-side are cisterns or wells dug in the sand, and girls were filling with water the classical stone pitchers they carried upon their heads—quite an Eastern picture, suggestive of Rebecca and the damsels of her country. Le Croisic is almost surrounded by the sea, low, and without shelter, which renders it cold, damp, and exposed to the winds; turf is almost the only fuel used.It is much frequented as a watering-place, and has an Etablissement. It is also a sea-port, with a rocky entrance to the harbour, and the dangerous rock with its lighthouse, called Le Four, extending for a league in front. The inhabitants of Le Croisic[pg 245]are principally engaged in the sardine fishery, and the curing of these fish consumes much of the salt of the marshes. The people complain this year they have no large orders for sardines, and there is but little white salt.The chapel of St. Goustan, on the edge of the harbour, is singularly built; its western gable perched upon a little rock, half of which is inside and half outside the building. The church is no longer open for Divine service; but the peasant-girl who desires to know if she will be married this year, tries to pass a pin through the bars of the northern window without touching the wall. On the opposite side of the estuary are Périac and La Turbale, both seats of the sardine fishery. Returning the way we came, we stopped at the Plage Valentin, another bathing-place in a pretty little bay; with dressing-rooms and a small Etablissement. An omnibus conveys the bathers from Le Croisic, for two sous. The sea looks more inviting here and at Poulignan than at Le Croisic, where there is so much seaweed in the harbour. We returned through Batz; the cathedral tower of Saint Aubin at Guérande is to be seen at a great distance, and is a prominent object in the scenery; the whole country is covered with salt-pans. Guérande stands on a height, and turning back, the view of the whole district is most extensive. We passed through Saillé, where[pg 246]Duke John IV. married Joan of Navarre, afterwards the second wife of Henry of Lancaster.Guérande, built on a vine-covered granite slope, is a singular old feudal town of the fifteenth century. It was fortified by Duke John V., and is nearly surrounded by granite walls, with ten towers and four old gateways, placed at the cardinal points of the compass. St. Michel, the principal gate, or rather a fortress, is flanked by two high towers, and contains the prison, archives, and hôtel de ville. A moat formerly surrounded the walls; but it has long been filled in, and boulevards substituted. From the battlements hang festoons of honeysuckle and ivy, and the moat is full of the yellow iris and water-lilies; nevertheless, Guérande has an austere, sombre aspect. There is a fine terrace walk, called the Mail, commanding a view of the whole country over Poulignan, Batz, and Le Croisic—a tented plain of salt.47. La Roche Bernard.The church of St. Aubin has Romanesque columns, with grotesque capitals. In one, two persons are sawing a third, stretched upon a wheel. On the left of the double-arched porch, is a pulpit outside the church, and there is some good painted glass within. Notre Dame Blanche, a chapel of the fourteenth century, is a pretty little building with stone pulpit and a sculptured group of Notre Dame-de-la-Salette with the two peasant children of Alsace.[pg 247]Next day, we took a private carriage for La Roche Bernard; the road lying over a wide extent of land through Herbignac to La Roche Bernard (Morbihan), which is most picturesquely situated on a rocky height overhanging the Vilaine, here traversed by an elegant suspension-bridge, opened in 1839, about 666 feet long and above 108 feet above high-water mark—a terrible dizzy height to cross even in calm weather. A few years since, the postman, his cart, and horse were all blown over into the river, and nothing more was ever heard of them.[pg 248]We went fishing several days in a large étang close to La Roche Bernard, and one evening took a pretty walk over the hills to another pond situated in a lovely secluded valley near a water-mill. La Roche Bernard was an early Protestant colony, founded by the Sieur d'Andelot, Seigneur of La Roche Bernard, brother to Admiral Coligny, and one of the firmest supporters of Calvinism. The Calvinists used to assemble at his château of Bretesch, where the minister of La Roche Bernard came to preach to them. D'Andelot and his sister, who was equally zealous in the cause, are, it is said, interred at La Roche Bernard. Near the Halles is a square block of houses; one of timber, with "Voie au Duc" inscribed upon it. These houses are said to have belonged to a Protestant community, and all to communicate with each other.The evening of our arrival there was a wedding supper given at our hotel, the grand dinner having taken place elsewhere. The bride wore a white sash, with wreaths of white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music[pg 249]consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France. How it came to be introduced into Scotland and expel the harp—which was as much the original music of Scotland as of Wales and Ireland—is a mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now become national.On market-day numbers of the women from Muzillac, a place about ten miles distant, came in with their fruit. They all wear an enormous plaited black cap, which looks like the cowl of a friar. The graceful form of the earthenware pots attracted our attention: probably they came from the adjacent town of Herbignac. The 15th August, Fête de la Vierge, and also that of the Emperor, was kept as a general holiday. An immense concourse of people arrived from the neighbourhood, and attended the six o'clock mass. We walked to the quay, to see the sports on the water; the spectators picturesquely grouped on a mass of bare rocks, commanding a pretty view up and down the river.[pg 250]The amusements consisted of some races, and a mât de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a potato, and placed on each end of the window sill.Next day we left by diligence for Vannes, passing through Muzillac and on to Auray, where we took the steamer for Belle Isle.A steamer sails daily from the quay at Auray. The banks of the River Loch are very picturesque, the pine-trees (Pinus maritima) growing to the water's edge. On the left, the islands of the Morbihan; on the right, Locmariaker; the view extending to Carnac and Mont St. Michel, over the whole sweep of the bay formed by the peninsula of Quiberon.At Port Navalo we emerged from the Morbihan, and, on our right, passed the little rocky island of Teigneuse, with its lighthouse; and, on the left, those of Houat and Haedik (the duck and the duckling); the former famous as the retreat of St. Gildas, who leaped from here with one bound, a distance of ten miles, to the peninsula of Rhuys, where he built his monastery. From Auray to Belle Isle is in all forty-eight miles—ten miles of river to Port[pg 251]Navalo, the rest open sea. After eight hours' sail we reached Le Palais, the port and principal town of Belle Isle, built on the north-east side, and overhung by the citadel, the work of Vauban. The town consists of one principal street—the Rue Trochu—so called after the General of that name and his brother, who were the first, at the beginning of this century, to introduce agriculture into the island. We passed, at a distance to the right, the model farm of M. Trochu fils, on our way across the island to the lighthouse,—a cheerless drive, as there are no trees to be seen except near Le Palais. When M. Trochu commenced his labours, agriculture was little attended to in France, but he persevered in his exertions, beginning by clearing about sixty acres of granite rock, a land covered with heath and furze, setting at defiance the Breton saying, "Lande tu fus, lande tu es, lande tu seras." This same district is now covered with rich meadows, fine woods, productive arable fields, and magnificent pasture land, on which horses are extensively reared.48. Entrance to Le Palais, Belle Isle.We gathered on the heathy moor three kinds of heath, the Cornish among others. The artichoke grows wild in the waste grounds. Wheat, turnips, beetroot, Indian corn, and potatoes, are the chief produce of the land in cultivation. This last vegetable was introduced by the families from Nova[pg 252]Scotia (Acadia), who settled in Belle Isle, after that province was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, in 1766. This was several years before Parmentier had extended the use of the potato, or "truffe rouge," as it was first called, over other parts of France. Indian corn was probably also brought in by the Nova Scotians. The leaves are constantly cut during its growth as fodder for the cattle, so that the cob hardly attains a foot in height from the ground. On the left of our road we saw in the distance the village of Bangor, which gives its name to one of the four districts into which Belle Isle is divided. A little south is the fine granite lighthouse, of the stupendous height of 450 feet. We toiled up 255 steps (223 stone and 32 iron) before we gained the lantern, and, though the view was very extensive, we were rejoiced at finding ourselves safe down. One of the guardians had been waylaid, kicked, and beaten, a few evenings before, for some slight grudge. He seemed in great suffering, but had no doctor; the Breton, in his simple confiding faith—that with the Almighty are the issues of life and death, and that illness will end according to His decree—considers the calling in of a medical adviser but an unnecessary expense to his family. From the lighthouse we walked to the sea-shore. Belle Isle is a table-land, surrounded by steep cliffs, averaging 130 feet in height, which can only be[pg 253][pg 254][pg 255]descended to the shore in particular places. We walked to the Grotte du Port Coton, where begins the "Mer Sauvage," as it is called, an extent of five to six miles of most picturesque rocks, some elevated from 130 to 160 feet above the level of the sea, jagged and torn into most fantastic forms by the ceaseless dashing of the waters of the Atlantic, which have formed various grottoes in the cliffs. We descended into one of these caverns by a narrow gulley, but could not proceed far, as the tide was entering fast, and would soon have surrounded us, cutting off all means of retreat.49. Device of Fouquet.It reminded us of the description in the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne' of the grotto at Locmaria, which was blown up, and crushed the mousquetaire Porthos, at the moment of his and Aramis' triumph over the soldiers of the King. So great at times is the fury of the waves, that our guide at the lighthouse told us he had seen on several occasions the spray driven over to Le Palais, nearly five miles distant. Continuing our walk along the cliffs, we came to an enormous mass of rock, standing far out detached from the cliff, and covered with screaming sea-gulls. We again descended by another fissure into a pretty sandy cove, surrounded by the same wild granite rocks; but in most places there is no beach at all. It was now high water, so it was useless to attempt the Grotte des Apothécaires,—the finest, they say, of[pg 256]them all, and we returned to Le Palais well pleased with the remarkably wild coast we had seen. Belle-isle forms now a canton in the department of Morbihan. In ancient days it belonged to the Abbot of Saint-Croix, at Quimperlé, who sold it, in the time of Charles IX., to the Maréchal de Gondi, and, in 1573, it was erected into a Marquisate. (Cardinal de Retz lived here after his escape from the castle of Nantes.) One of his successors, Henri de Gondi, being overwhelmed with debt, sold the island to Nicolas Fouquet, the ill-fated Superintendent of Finance, on whose disgrace, and his being subsequently consigned to the fortress of Pignarol, his grandson, the Marquis de Belle Isle, exchanged it with Louis XV. for the Comté of Gisors, erected into a duchy in 1742. Fouquet built a palace and completed the citadel, for which he employed Vauban. He also projected fortifications to enclose the town, which are now in course of completion by the Emperor, after Vauban's plans. Several guns had just been landed, the day before we visited the citadel, to see which an order is requisite. Near the citadel is the "Maison centrale des détenus," now only containing a few old men, too feeble for hard labour. We were too tired to walk to look at the celebrated cistern of Vauban, which holds, we were told, above thirty thousand imperial gallons of water. Fouquet's palace was, it is said, destroyed to complete[pg 257]the line of fortifications. A house was pointed out to us as having formed part of the original building. Some years since, a stone was picked up in the harbour bearing his ambitious device—a squirrel, with the motto,Quo non ascendum?"To where shall I not rise?" The greater number of the population of Belle Isle are employed in the fisheries; of these the sardine and the tunny are the chief. There are large establishments for curing sardines, which are very abundant, and lobsters, taken in the rocks of Belle Isle and the little islands of Houat and Hædic, are sent to London and Paris. The boats go as far as Spain, to the coast of Catalonia, for the tunny fishery, which extends from August to the beginning of October. These fish are taken by lines hung along the sides of the vessel, with a bell attached to each to give notice of a bite. The most esteemed part of the tunny is the underneath, or "panse." The next morning we sailed back to Auray. The nearest point to Belle Isle is Quiberon, only ten miles from Le Palais. From Auray by rail to Quimper, where we took the diligence to Pont l'Abbé, an old town formerly of[pg 258]some importance, in the midst of a fertile, rich country. The costume worn at Pont l'Abbé and along the Bay of Audierne is very singular. The cap, or "bigouden," is composed of two pieces: first, a kind of skull-cap, or serre-tête, fitting tight to the head over the ears, then a little round bit, resembling, the young people said, a "pork-pie" hat, made of starched linen, pinched into a three-cornered peak, the middle peak embroidered and tied on by a piece[pg 259]of tape fastening under the chin; the hair is turned up, "en chignon," over the skull-cap. The body of the dress has a large "pièce" of red or yellow, and sleeves to match. The men wear several very short coats, one over the other, the shortest trimmed with fringe; sometimes sentences are embroidered with coloured woollens round the edge. It was market day; the women were sitting, with distaff and spindle, on each side of the entrance to the Halle. Some of them have short bead-chains with a ring, attached to the left shoulder, to stick their distaffs in when not at work. There was abundance of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, and sardines, which, with bigoudens and other articles of dress, formed the principal commodities for sale. Pont l'Abbé and its Port, Loctudy, carry on an extensive trade with Jersey, and large quantities of potatoes are exported to that island. There were some Jersey merchants at the table-d'hôte.50. Peasant Girl. Pont l'Abbé.The church of Pont l'Abbé has only one aisle. There is a fine rose window over the west entrance, of great lightness and richness, with a smaller one at the left; at the east end is another rose window of larger dimensions, the mullions forming geometric patterns, but differing in design from the other. The French architects always took great pains in the decoration of this part of the church, and these wheel windows really rival those of Rouen.[pg 260]51. Apse of the Church, Loctudy.Attached to the church, are the cloisters of the Carmelite convent to which the church formerly belonged, built in the beginning of the fifteenth century by Bertram de Rosmadec, who had so much contributed to the completion of the cathedral at Quimper. The square is surrounded by an interlaced[pg 261]circular arcade, forming trefoiled pointed arches, all in excellent preservation. The access to the cloisters is through the conventual building, now a private house and garden, the proprietor kindly granting us permission.We drove to Loctudy, on the mouth of the Pont l'Abbé river opposite the little island of Tudy, called after an English saint of that name. Fleeing from the persecutions of the Picts and Scots who desolated his country, he founded here, at the end of the fifth century, a considerable monastery, afterwards destroyed by the Normans.At Loctudy is a curious Romanesque church, one of the best preserved in Brittany, which dates from the Templars of the twelfth century. It has a nave with aisles going all round the choir, and three round apsidal chapels at the end. The five arches on each side of the nave are horse-shoe shaped, and the choir is surrounded by the same number of high narrow arches, resting on columns with grotesque capitals of complicated design. The three chapels behind are seen through the opening; on one of the capitals is sculptured the cross of the Templars. The whole building is spoiled by whitewash.“Chevaliers en ce monde cyNe peuvent vivre sans souci;Ils doivent le peuple defendre,Et leur sang pour la foi espandre.”Eustache Deschamps.[pg 262]52. Torche of Penmarch.We engaged a rough kind of vehicle, much like a butcher's cart, to visit the Torche de Penmarch, a rocky promontory, so called from its fancied resemblance to a horse's head, forming the southern extremity of the department of Finistère. The Torche is a mass of rocks separated from the mainland by a chasm called the "Saut de Moine," because[pg 263]an Irish saint, named Viaud, jumped across it on his landing. In rough weather, the noise made by the sea dashing against its sides and rushing through the crevices of the rocks, is said to be heard at Quimper, a distance of twenty-one miles. A line of rocks runs all along the coast, marked by a lighthouse at Penmarch; we proceeded to another group of rocks near which M. de Châtellier, a proprietor and antiquary of this country, has built a house for painting and enjoying the scenery. One of our party clambered down to see the "Trou d'Enfer," a tremendously deep hole in the rocks, the bottom covered with a pink sort of sea-weed, and the water as clear as crystal. The whole country is a dreary sandy level, with salt-marshes, over which we passed to the ruined church of St. Fiacre, and close by is that of St. Guenolé, both situated near the sea. The countryman who showed us the church, knelt reverently down at the threshold and put up a short prayer before he entered the sacred building. The general devoutness and strong faith of the Bretons is most impressive and genuine, mixed, no doubt, with great superstition; but, as Wesley says, "Heaven makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the faith notwithstanding the superstition."53. Ship Sculptured on the Walls.Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.St. Guenolé consists of an unfinished square tower, with crocketed pinnacles and a porch of considerable size, under a large mullioned window of the[pg 264]fifteenth century. On each side of the porch are rude sculptures of ships and fishes, not uncommon in these parts, set there to show the church has been built with the thank-offerings of the fisher population of the district. In our tour we met with several churches with this sign, evidences of the piety of the fishermen; indeed, at Dunkirk, when the church was burned down in the sixteenth century by the French, it was entirely rebuilt by the contribution called "le filet saint," from an ancient custom among the fishermen of having one net so called, the produce of which was set apart for the church.54. Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.Towards the lighthouse are the ruins of the old town of Penmarch, much celebrated in the maritime history of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries; its commerce extended even to Spain, and the riches of its inhabitants were so surpassingly great, that they drank out of silver cups, and the lords of a manor near the Torche furnished the silk required to line the road traversed by religious processions, their wealth being due to the "viande de carême," that is to say, to the cod fishery. But the discovery of Newfoundland deprived them of this lucrative monopoly, and the ravages of Fontenelle le Ligueur[pg 265][pg 266][pg 267]completed their ruin. All now is a scene of desolation. Penmarch has been called the Palmyra of Brittany.Guy Eder Fontenelle, the Leaguer, who spread terror and devastation throughout Brittany in the sixteenth century, was a member of the Beaumanoir family; the name he adopted was that of one of the family estates. He was born in the Château of Beaumanoir (near Evran), and his elder brother early foresaw his guilty career. He escaped from college and united himself with a set of young men as lawless as himself; they formed themselves into a band, which soon became the dread of all Brittany. They ravaged the whole of Tréguier and Cornouaille, surprised the châteaux of Coëtfrec and others, took the church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged, Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300 vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his head-quarters, issuing from his stronghold to devastate the country. He murdered above fifteen hundred peasants at Plougastel, sank an English ship, without allowing her crew a moment to save themselves, imprisoned and tortured at Douarnenez[pg 268]all who fell into his hands. His victims never survived his cruelties more than three or four days, when their bodies were cast out into the bay to the fishes. These were only a few of his atrocities. As he called himself one of the leaders of the League in Brittany, the Duke de Mercœur, its chief, indignant at the barbarities perpetrated in its name, caused Fontenelle to be imprisoned, but he was liberated on paying a ransom; and, fearing he would give Douarnenez over to the Spaniards, Fontenelle was included in the pacification of Mercœur with Henry IV. But four years later he was implicated in the conspiracy of Biron; on which occasion all his old crimes were raked up against him, and he was condemned to be dragged on a hurdle, and broken alive upon the wheel, which sentence was executed on the Place de Grève at Paris in 1602. In consideration of the illustrious house to whom he belonged, the king granted that in the act of condemnation he should not go by his own name. We next went to see the church of Saint Nonna in the town, the largest of the numerous churches in the parish of Penmarch. Ships are sculptured in front of the tower, as at St. Guenolé. On the left of the porch is a pretty window, the mullions formed by three fleur de lis. In the church is a curious old painting styled, "Procession du vœu de Louis XIII." Portraits of the King, the Dauphin (Louis XIV.),[pg 269]Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Richelieu, are introduced, and a view of the church of St. Nonna is in the background.55. Fleur-de-Lisé Window, Church ofSt. Nonna, Penmarch.On our way home we passed, on the left, at Kerscaven, two menhirs, one curiously furrowed and shaped like a half-opened fan.We had a pretty drive from Pont l'Abbé, with occasional views of the Bay of Audierne, extending from Penmarch to the Pointe du Raz. Midway the horse, going down a steep hill, fell, and we all found ourselves upon the road, but happily unhurt. We met numbers of peasants returning from the fair at Pontcroix; and our driver, a butcher by trade, coolly stopped the vehicle, to discourse with them on the price of stock, and to handle the sheep they had bought. Our drive was enlivened with occasional peeps of the Bay of Audierne till we reached the little port of that name, the view of which is very pretty. Audierne is approached by a bridge across the river or estuary. At its entrance is a lighthouse, and on the right a sandy bay, with bathing-machines in the season.[pg 270]56. Pointe du Raz.The town consists of three streets of cut granite houses, with the name of the builder and the date of their construction inscribed over the door. Fishing is the occupation of the inhabitants, and the table-d'hôte at our comfortable, clean, little inn was plentifully supplied with magnificent john dorys, large red mullet, langoustes, and fish of every description.[pg 271]From Audierne we took a carriage to visit the Pointe du Raz, apromontoryso famous for its rocks and wrecks. We went through a treeless country; near a pretty bay, on the left, is the chapel of Notre Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, destined chiefly for sailors, after which the country becomes more wild, barren, and cheerless. We passed over a bridge which no Breton would dare to cross at night, for fear of being flung by the spirits into the river. According to their belief, a hare appears on the bridge, and terrifies the horses, who throw their rider, and the traveller is dragged by the phantom into the muddy river, where he is kept till morning's dawn, when he is allowed to pursue his way, exhausted with cold, and half dead with fright. They are very superstitious here, as in all Cornouaille. A writer says, "every nation of the earth has its superstitions and absurdities, but Brittany has those of all other nations united." An old woman in a village hard by, said our driver, has never been seen inside the walls of a church; the people say she has sold herself to the evil one, and no one dares go near or speak to her.On the left is the pretty steeple of the church of Plogoff, situated on an eminence, and dedicated to Saint Collédoc, a Welsh bishop of the sixth century, contemporary of King Arthur, and associated with many of the doings of Queen Guinevre and the knights of the Round Table. Lescoff is the last[pg 272]village we passed through before—after driving over a barren plain—we arrived at the lighthouse, built thirty years back at the Pointe.We walked thence to the Pointe, a gigantic and magnificent mass of rocks, eighty feet above the level of the sea. We met with a good-natured woman, who led the young people over the rocks to look down the "Enfer de Plogoff." They had a slippery scramble to reach the hole, a kind of tunnel through which the sea rushes with great violence, so much more terrible than that of Penmarch, that the noise has been compared to the distant roaring of some thousands of wild beasts issuing from the depths of a forest. In the mean time, we remained seated on the bank enjoying the view. On the south lay the Bay of Audierne, extending in the form of a crescent, the promontories of Penmarch and Raz forming the extreme points. The currents, and the numerous rocks of the bay, render it a dangerous coast, formerly peopled by barbarous wreckers, who despoiled the shipwrecked mariners as our Cornish men of old. Opposite the Raz, about seven miles distant, is the Island of Sein, and to the right, the Baie des Trépassés. The island of Sein was anciently the seat of an oracle, interpreted by nine Druidesses, who were versed in every art and science. Moreover, they appear to have been accomplished needlewomen; for a Breton chronicler, giving an account of thecoronation[pg 273]of an early king (Erech) at Nantes, describes his mantle as embroidered by these priestesses with figures of Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Their skill in divination caused them to be associated with the fairies; and Morgan—i.e."born of the sea"—one of these priestesses, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, was famous among the British fairies.
44. Salt-pans, with Le Croisic in the distance.These salt-pans, cut out into small squares, have the appearance of one great chess-board, interspersed with occasional hamlets and woods. The working of them employs the whole population of the district.They consist of large basins, dug at different depths, into which the water of the sea is introduced, and are divided into squares called "œillets." The salt-water is turned upon the marsh by canals styled "étiers," edged with narrow paths or roads called "bossis," elevated, some of them, three or four feet above the marsh; on these the newly collected salt is generally laid. The water passes by a subterranean conduit, the "coëf," into the "vasière,"[pg 234]where the first evaporation takes place; and then successively into the "cobiers," "fares," and "adernemètres," until it flows finally into the "œillets," where the salt is definitively formed. Each "œillet" is about 20 feet by 30. The heat of the sun and the wind effect the evaporation, which the paludier assists by stirring the water from time to time. The salt which forms on the surface resembles a kind of white cream, and exhales an agreeable perfume resembling violets. This is the finest salt; that which falls to the bottom of the salt-pan is of a greyish cast. The salt when formed is then scraped off, drained, and the women collect it and stack it on the "bossis" into conical heaps, which they cover with a coating of clay, to render them impervious to weather. In the salting season, the salt marshes with their innumerable hillocks of white salt have the appearance of a vast tent-covered camp. Each "œillet" produces about 150 lbs. of salt. The same salt-pans are worked from century to century by the same "paludiers" or their descendants. The proprietors may change, but the workmen remain, considering the salt-pans their prescriptive inheritance. For payment, they receive one-fourth of the salt. The dress of the paludier is a smock-frock of irreproachable whiteness, with pockets, white shoes, gaiters, and linen breeches, an enormous black flap hat turned up on the side in a point or horn. The[pg 235][pg 236][pg 237]young man wears the point over the ear, the married turns it behind, and the widower in front. We reached the Bourg de Batz in time for vespers, and had an opportunity of seeing the people in their Sunday dress. The men wear three or four cloth waistcoats, all of different lengths, so as to let the various colours, red, white, and blue, with which they are bound, appear one above the other in tiers, a muslin turnover collar, full plaited breeches[pg 238]of fine cloth tied at the knee by garters of floating ribbon, white woollen stockings with worked clocks and light yellow shoes, their flap hats ornamented with a roll of chenille of varied colours. The headdress of the women is singular and most intricate. The hair, in two rolls, twisted round with white tape, forms a kind of coronet across their heads; over this, a piece of net is drawn tight, forming a sort of cap, describing a peak behind, and crossing in front like a handkerchief.45. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his working dress.The dress consists of several petticoats of cloth plaited, red body, turned-up sleeves, and large coloured bibs or plastrons which they call "pièces," of the same stuff as their dresses. The girls' aprons are plain, without pockets, but the women's are of coloured silk, some of a rich brocade. A shawl with fringed border completes the costume. Some of the women had their heads and shoulders wrapped up in a triangular, black, shaggy sheepskin mantle; these were widows.At the inn where we alighted, they keep the splendid costumes worn by the people at weddings and other great occasions; and, by paying them for their trouble, they will put them on for inspection. The bride's costumes are of great magnificence; they array themselves in three different dresses on their wedding-day. First, a gown of white velvet, with apron of moire antique; secondly, one of violet[pg 239]velvet; and the third equally costly. Embroidered sleeves, the "pièce" of cloth of gold, the petticoats looped up with a wide sash, embroidered in gold, and gold clocks to the stockings.46. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his wedding dress.We were shown a state bed, or "lit de mariage," a tall four-post, painted red, with green reps tester and curtains, embroidered with yellow chenille. The great sign of wealth is to have the bedding reach to the top of the bedstead. To effect this,[pg 240]the base is formed of bundles of vine-stalks, over which is spread the straw, and when this scaffolding has been raised some feet, a paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind of lace or cutwork.The houses are solidly built of granite, and slated; the windows large. The furniture is good, generally comprising a well-waxed carved oak armoire, upon which are arranged earthenware plates of various colours.The paludiers of Batz preserve their original type distinct from the peasants of the environs; and form, like the Jews, a separate people, intermarrying among themselves, retaining their own peculiar manners and customs. They are supposed to descend from a Saxon colony. The paludier is tall in stature; their women remarkable for their fair complexions, which contrast strongly with their sunburnt neighbours. They are loyal and devout, true to their word, courageous and enduring; though the paludier is miserably poor, from the oppressiveness of the salt-tax, he never complains. Begging is unknown. Their food consists of rye bread, porridge of black corn, potatoes, and shellfish.[pg 241]They are sober, and drink wine in small quantities.Formerly the salt was distributed over the adjacent provinces by means of "saulniers," the journeymen labourers of the paludiers. Dressed in their picturesque costume, with a train of mules, whose tinkling bells announced their arrival, the saulnier was welcomed in every village where he sold his salt or exchanged it for other merchandize. "Le sucre des pauvres," as salt has been aptly called, was severely taxed under the old régime; distributions of the "sel royale" were yearly made by the Government among the gentry of the provinces, but the poor, who had no such privileges, severely felt the oppression, and smuggling was consequently extensively carried on, and the "faux saulnier," with his double bag across his shoulders, secretly sold salt upon which the gabelle had not been paid. With a faux saulnier originated the great peasant rising in Brittany, the Chouan war; a war to which Napoleon said, "All preceding wars have been but games." Jean, father of the four brothers Cottereau, was a maker of wooden shoes, and lived in a forest near Laval (Maine). From his solitary life he had acquired such sombre, wild, melancholy habits, that people gave him the name of Chouan, Maine patois for Chat-huant, and his family received the sobriquet long before the insurrection of 1792. Jean[pg 242]Cottereau was the most celebrated faux saulnier of Maine; he had accidentally killed a revenue officer in one of his encounters, and his heroic mother made a journey to Versailles, barefooted, "sur le cuir de ses pieds," to obtain his pardon. Jean's master and patron was guillotined, his two sisters shared the same fate, and one of his brothers died of his wounds, and his body was disinterred by the Revolutionists. These personal wrongs, the treatment of the King, the interdiction of the Catholic religion, its processions, its bells, the persecution of its ministers, all goaded the Breton peasantry to revolt; and Jean was the first to fire a gun against a Republican at the cry of "Vive le Roi." The rising began with a few peasants, armed with a gun or a stick, dressed in short breeches open at the knee, with leather gaiters, and coloured garters; their long hair streaming over the shoulders, their heads covered with a wide-brimmed hat, or brown or red cap, sabots tipped with iron, and, in cold weather, a loose coat of goatskin. The Chouans assembled in small bands and attacked the Republicans at night in ambuscade, and when they had killed a few "Bleus" disappeared among the corn-fields or the furze-bushes. Simple peasants, they fought against the Republicans in defence of the altar and the throne. Their "commandements" ran thus:—[pg 243]“Ton Dieu, ton Roy, tu servirasJusqu'à la mort fidèlement.Docile à tes chefs tu seras,Afin de vaincre surement.Sobre et discret te montreras,Buvant peu, parlant rarement;De ton chef jamais n'agirasAttendant le commandement;Violemment rien ne prendras,Mais en payant exactement.Age et sexe respecteras,Etant soldat et non brigand.Les comités corrigeras,Et les mouchards chrétiennement;Né Breton, tu n'oublieras,Afin d'agir loyalement.Dans le succès clement seras;Dans le malheur, ferme et constant.Chaque jour ton Dieu tu prieras;Que peux tu sans son bras puissant?”Such were the first Chouans: they had no organisation until they followed Larochejaquelin and the Vendean army to Granville, and accompanied them in their retreat; when their numbers were materially increased and their character completely changed by the deserters and brigands, who joined and eventually succeeded the peasantry.The church of Batz is of cut stone. It has a square tower, surmounted by a cupola steeple, which with that of Le Croisic serves as a landmark to vessels having to steer between the two dangerous rocks Le Four, in front of Le Croisic, and Les Blanches, situated near the mouth of the Loire.[pg 244]The choir is inclined, like that of St. Pol and others in Brittany. On one of the bosses in the interior is a grotesque carving of a man torn to pieces by the seven capital sins. On others are the Santa Veronica, the Good Shepherd, Ste. Barbara, &c. Near the church are the pretty ruins of the chapel of Notre Dame-du-Mûrier.We drove on to Le Croisic, in Breton, "Little Cross;" so called from the small chapel of the Crucifix, built to commemorate the baptism by St. Felix, Bishop of Nantes, in the sixth century, of the Saxon colony who occupied the peninsula. Le Croisic was one of the first towns in Brittany which received Christianity, and bears for its arms a cross between four ermines. Along the road-side are cisterns or wells dug in the sand, and girls were filling with water the classical stone pitchers they carried upon their heads—quite an Eastern picture, suggestive of Rebecca and the damsels of her country. Le Croisic is almost surrounded by the sea, low, and without shelter, which renders it cold, damp, and exposed to the winds; turf is almost the only fuel used.It is much frequented as a watering-place, and has an Etablissement. It is also a sea-port, with a rocky entrance to the harbour, and the dangerous rock with its lighthouse, called Le Four, extending for a league in front. The inhabitants of Le Croisic[pg 245]are principally engaged in the sardine fishery, and the curing of these fish consumes much of the salt of the marshes. The people complain this year they have no large orders for sardines, and there is but little white salt.The chapel of St. Goustan, on the edge of the harbour, is singularly built; its western gable perched upon a little rock, half of which is inside and half outside the building. The church is no longer open for Divine service; but the peasant-girl who desires to know if she will be married this year, tries to pass a pin through the bars of the northern window without touching the wall. On the opposite side of the estuary are Périac and La Turbale, both seats of the sardine fishery. Returning the way we came, we stopped at the Plage Valentin, another bathing-place in a pretty little bay; with dressing-rooms and a small Etablissement. An omnibus conveys the bathers from Le Croisic, for two sous. The sea looks more inviting here and at Poulignan than at Le Croisic, where there is so much seaweed in the harbour. We returned through Batz; the cathedral tower of Saint Aubin at Guérande is to be seen at a great distance, and is a prominent object in the scenery; the whole country is covered with salt-pans. Guérande stands on a height, and turning back, the view of the whole district is most extensive. We passed through Saillé, where[pg 246]Duke John IV. married Joan of Navarre, afterwards the second wife of Henry of Lancaster.Guérande, built on a vine-covered granite slope, is a singular old feudal town of the fifteenth century. It was fortified by Duke John V., and is nearly surrounded by granite walls, with ten towers and four old gateways, placed at the cardinal points of the compass. St. Michel, the principal gate, or rather a fortress, is flanked by two high towers, and contains the prison, archives, and hôtel de ville. A moat formerly surrounded the walls; but it has long been filled in, and boulevards substituted. From the battlements hang festoons of honeysuckle and ivy, and the moat is full of the yellow iris and water-lilies; nevertheless, Guérande has an austere, sombre aspect. There is a fine terrace walk, called the Mail, commanding a view of the whole country over Poulignan, Batz, and Le Croisic—a tented plain of salt.47. La Roche Bernard.The church of St. Aubin has Romanesque columns, with grotesque capitals. In one, two persons are sawing a third, stretched upon a wheel. On the left of the double-arched porch, is a pulpit outside the church, and there is some good painted glass within. Notre Dame Blanche, a chapel of the fourteenth century, is a pretty little building with stone pulpit and a sculptured group of Notre Dame-de-la-Salette with the two peasant children of Alsace.[pg 247]Next day, we took a private carriage for La Roche Bernard; the road lying over a wide extent of land through Herbignac to La Roche Bernard (Morbihan), which is most picturesquely situated on a rocky height overhanging the Vilaine, here traversed by an elegant suspension-bridge, opened in 1839, about 666 feet long and above 108 feet above high-water mark—a terrible dizzy height to cross even in calm weather. A few years since, the postman, his cart, and horse were all blown over into the river, and nothing more was ever heard of them.[pg 248]We went fishing several days in a large étang close to La Roche Bernard, and one evening took a pretty walk over the hills to another pond situated in a lovely secluded valley near a water-mill. La Roche Bernard was an early Protestant colony, founded by the Sieur d'Andelot, Seigneur of La Roche Bernard, brother to Admiral Coligny, and one of the firmest supporters of Calvinism. The Calvinists used to assemble at his château of Bretesch, where the minister of La Roche Bernard came to preach to them. D'Andelot and his sister, who was equally zealous in the cause, are, it is said, interred at La Roche Bernard. Near the Halles is a square block of houses; one of timber, with "Voie au Duc" inscribed upon it. These houses are said to have belonged to a Protestant community, and all to communicate with each other.The evening of our arrival there was a wedding supper given at our hotel, the grand dinner having taken place elsewhere. The bride wore a white sash, with wreaths of white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music[pg 249]consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France. How it came to be introduced into Scotland and expel the harp—which was as much the original music of Scotland as of Wales and Ireland—is a mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now become national.On market-day numbers of the women from Muzillac, a place about ten miles distant, came in with their fruit. They all wear an enormous plaited black cap, which looks like the cowl of a friar. The graceful form of the earthenware pots attracted our attention: probably they came from the adjacent town of Herbignac. The 15th August, Fête de la Vierge, and also that of the Emperor, was kept as a general holiday. An immense concourse of people arrived from the neighbourhood, and attended the six o'clock mass. We walked to the quay, to see the sports on the water; the spectators picturesquely grouped on a mass of bare rocks, commanding a pretty view up and down the river.[pg 250]The amusements consisted of some races, and a mât de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a potato, and placed on each end of the window sill.Next day we left by diligence for Vannes, passing through Muzillac and on to Auray, where we took the steamer for Belle Isle.A steamer sails daily from the quay at Auray. The banks of the River Loch are very picturesque, the pine-trees (Pinus maritima) growing to the water's edge. On the left, the islands of the Morbihan; on the right, Locmariaker; the view extending to Carnac and Mont St. Michel, over the whole sweep of the bay formed by the peninsula of Quiberon.At Port Navalo we emerged from the Morbihan, and, on our right, passed the little rocky island of Teigneuse, with its lighthouse; and, on the left, those of Houat and Haedik (the duck and the duckling); the former famous as the retreat of St. Gildas, who leaped from here with one bound, a distance of ten miles, to the peninsula of Rhuys, where he built his monastery. From Auray to Belle Isle is in all forty-eight miles—ten miles of river to Port[pg 251]Navalo, the rest open sea. After eight hours' sail we reached Le Palais, the port and principal town of Belle Isle, built on the north-east side, and overhung by the citadel, the work of Vauban. The town consists of one principal street—the Rue Trochu—so called after the General of that name and his brother, who were the first, at the beginning of this century, to introduce agriculture into the island. We passed, at a distance to the right, the model farm of M. Trochu fils, on our way across the island to the lighthouse,—a cheerless drive, as there are no trees to be seen except near Le Palais. When M. Trochu commenced his labours, agriculture was little attended to in France, but he persevered in his exertions, beginning by clearing about sixty acres of granite rock, a land covered with heath and furze, setting at defiance the Breton saying, "Lande tu fus, lande tu es, lande tu seras." This same district is now covered with rich meadows, fine woods, productive arable fields, and magnificent pasture land, on which horses are extensively reared.48. Entrance to Le Palais, Belle Isle.We gathered on the heathy moor three kinds of heath, the Cornish among others. The artichoke grows wild in the waste grounds. Wheat, turnips, beetroot, Indian corn, and potatoes, are the chief produce of the land in cultivation. This last vegetable was introduced by the families from Nova[pg 252]Scotia (Acadia), who settled in Belle Isle, after that province was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, in 1766. This was several years before Parmentier had extended the use of the potato, or "truffe rouge," as it was first called, over other parts of France. Indian corn was probably also brought in by the Nova Scotians. The leaves are constantly cut during its growth as fodder for the cattle, so that the cob hardly attains a foot in height from the ground. On the left of our road we saw in the distance the village of Bangor, which gives its name to one of the four districts into which Belle Isle is divided. A little south is the fine granite lighthouse, of the stupendous height of 450 feet. We toiled up 255 steps (223 stone and 32 iron) before we gained the lantern, and, though the view was very extensive, we were rejoiced at finding ourselves safe down. One of the guardians had been waylaid, kicked, and beaten, a few evenings before, for some slight grudge. He seemed in great suffering, but had no doctor; the Breton, in his simple confiding faith—that with the Almighty are the issues of life and death, and that illness will end according to His decree—considers the calling in of a medical adviser but an unnecessary expense to his family. From the lighthouse we walked to the sea-shore. Belle Isle is a table-land, surrounded by steep cliffs, averaging 130 feet in height, which can only be[pg 253][pg 254][pg 255]descended to the shore in particular places. We walked to the Grotte du Port Coton, where begins the "Mer Sauvage," as it is called, an extent of five to six miles of most picturesque rocks, some elevated from 130 to 160 feet above the level of the sea, jagged and torn into most fantastic forms by the ceaseless dashing of the waters of the Atlantic, which have formed various grottoes in the cliffs. We descended into one of these caverns by a narrow gulley, but could not proceed far, as the tide was entering fast, and would soon have surrounded us, cutting off all means of retreat.49. Device of Fouquet.It reminded us of the description in the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne' of the grotto at Locmaria, which was blown up, and crushed the mousquetaire Porthos, at the moment of his and Aramis' triumph over the soldiers of the King. So great at times is the fury of the waves, that our guide at the lighthouse told us he had seen on several occasions the spray driven over to Le Palais, nearly five miles distant. Continuing our walk along the cliffs, we came to an enormous mass of rock, standing far out detached from the cliff, and covered with screaming sea-gulls. We again descended by another fissure into a pretty sandy cove, surrounded by the same wild granite rocks; but in most places there is no beach at all. It was now high water, so it was useless to attempt the Grotte des Apothécaires,—the finest, they say, of[pg 256]them all, and we returned to Le Palais well pleased with the remarkably wild coast we had seen. Belle-isle forms now a canton in the department of Morbihan. In ancient days it belonged to the Abbot of Saint-Croix, at Quimperlé, who sold it, in the time of Charles IX., to the Maréchal de Gondi, and, in 1573, it was erected into a Marquisate. (Cardinal de Retz lived here after his escape from the castle of Nantes.) One of his successors, Henri de Gondi, being overwhelmed with debt, sold the island to Nicolas Fouquet, the ill-fated Superintendent of Finance, on whose disgrace, and his being subsequently consigned to the fortress of Pignarol, his grandson, the Marquis de Belle Isle, exchanged it with Louis XV. for the Comté of Gisors, erected into a duchy in 1742. Fouquet built a palace and completed the citadel, for which he employed Vauban. He also projected fortifications to enclose the town, which are now in course of completion by the Emperor, after Vauban's plans. Several guns had just been landed, the day before we visited the citadel, to see which an order is requisite. Near the citadel is the "Maison centrale des détenus," now only containing a few old men, too feeble for hard labour. We were too tired to walk to look at the celebrated cistern of Vauban, which holds, we were told, above thirty thousand imperial gallons of water. Fouquet's palace was, it is said, destroyed to complete[pg 257]the line of fortifications. A house was pointed out to us as having formed part of the original building. Some years since, a stone was picked up in the harbour bearing his ambitious device—a squirrel, with the motto,Quo non ascendum?"To where shall I not rise?" The greater number of the population of Belle Isle are employed in the fisheries; of these the sardine and the tunny are the chief. There are large establishments for curing sardines, which are very abundant, and lobsters, taken in the rocks of Belle Isle and the little islands of Houat and Hædic, are sent to London and Paris. The boats go as far as Spain, to the coast of Catalonia, for the tunny fishery, which extends from August to the beginning of October. These fish are taken by lines hung along the sides of the vessel, with a bell attached to each to give notice of a bite. The most esteemed part of the tunny is the underneath, or "panse." The next morning we sailed back to Auray. The nearest point to Belle Isle is Quiberon, only ten miles from Le Palais. From Auray by rail to Quimper, where we took the diligence to Pont l'Abbé, an old town formerly of[pg 258]some importance, in the midst of a fertile, rich country. The costume worn at Pont l'Abbé and along the Bay of Audierne is very singular. The cap, or "bigouden," is composed of two pieces: first, a kind of skull-cap, or serre-tête, fitting tight to the head over the ears, then a little round bit, resembling, the young people said, a "pork-pie" hat, made of starched linen, pinched into a three-cornered peak, the middle peak embroidered and tied on by a piece[pg 259]of tape fastening under the chin; the hair is turned up, "en chignon," over the skull-cap. The body of the dress has a large "pièce" of red or yellow, and sleeves to match. The men wear several very short coats, one over the other, the shortest trimmed with fringe; sometimes sentences are embroidered with coloured woollens round the edge. It was market day; the women were sitting, with distaff and spindle, on each side of the entrance to the Halle. Some of them have short bead-chains with a ring, attached to the left shoulder, to stick their distaffs in when not at work. There was abundance of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, and sardines, which, with bigoudens and other articles of dress, formed the principal commodities for sale. Pont l'Abbé and its Port, Loctudy, carry on an extensive trade with Jersey, and large quantities of potatoes are exported to that island. There were some Jersey merchants at the table-d'hôte.50. Peasant Girl. Pont l'Abbé.The church of Pont l'Abbé has only one aisle. There is a fine rose window over the west entrance, of great lightness and richness, with a smaller one at the left; at the east end is another rose window of larger dimensions, the mullions forming geometric patterns, but differing in design from the other. The French architects always took great pains in the decoration of this part of the church, and these wheel windows really rival those of Rouen.[pg 260]51. Apse of the Church, Loctudy.Attached to the church, are the cloisters of the Carmelite convent to which the church formerly belonged, built in the beginning of the fifteenth century by Bertram de Rosmadec, who had so much contributed to the completion of the cathedral at Quimper. The square is surrounded by an interlaced[pg 261]circular arcade, forming trefoiled pointed arches, all in excellent preservation. The access to the cloisters is through the conventual building, now a private house and garden, the proprietor kindly granting us permission.We drove to Loctudy, on the mouth of the Pont l'Abbé river opposite the little island of Tudy, called after an English saint of that name. Fleeing from the persecutions of the Picts and Scots who desolated his country, he founded here, at the end of the fifth century, a considerable monastery, afterwards destroyed by the Normans.At Loctudy is a curious Romanesque church, one of the best preserved in Brittany, which dates from the Templars of the twelfth century. It has a nave with aisles going all round the choir, and three round apsidal chapels at the end. The five arches on each side of the nave are horse-shoe shaped, and the choir is surrounded by the same number of high narrow arches, resting on columns with grotesque capitals of complicated design. The three chapels behind are seen through the opening; on one of the capitals is sculptured the cross of the Templars. The whole building is spoiled by whitewash.“Chevaliers en ce monde cyNe peuvent vivre sans souci;Ils doivent le peuple defendre,Et leur sang pour la foi espandre.”Eustache Deschamps.[pg 262]52. Torche of Penmarch.We engaged a rough kind of vehicle, much like a butcher's cart, to visit the Torche de Penmarch, a rocky promontory, so called from its fancied resemblance to a horse's head, forming the southern extremity of the department of Finistère. The Torche is a mass of rocks separated from the mainland by a chasm called the "Saut de Moine," because[pg 263]an Irish saint, named Viaud, jumped across it on his landing. In rough weather, the noise made by the sea dashing against its sides and rushing through the crevices of the rocks, is said to be heard at Quimper, a distance of twenty-one miles. A line of rocks runs all along the coast, marked by a lighthouse at Penmarch; we proceeded to another group of rocks near which M. de Châtellier, a proprietor and antiquary of this country, has built a house for painting and enjoying the scenery. One of our party clambered down to see the "Trou d'Enfer," a tremendously deep hole in the rocks, the bottom covered with a pink sort of sea-weed, and the water as clear as crystal. The whole country is a dreary sandy level, with salt-marshes, over which we passed to the ruined church of St. Fiacre, and close by is that of St. Guenolé, both situated near the sea. The countryman who showed us the church, knelt reverently down at the threshold and put up a short prayer before he entered the sacred building. The general devoutness and strong faith of the Bretons is most impressive and genuine, mixed, no doubt, with great superstition; but, as Wesley says, "Heaven makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the faith notwithstanding the superstition."53. Ship Sculptured on the Walls.Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.St. Guenolé consists of an unfinished square tower, with crocketed pinnacles and a porch of considerable size, under a large mullioned window of the[pg 264]fifteenth century. On each side of the porch are rude sculptures of ships and fishes, not uncommon in these parts, set there to show the church has been built with the thank-offerings of the fisher population of the district. In our tour we met with several churches with this sign, evidences of the piety of the fishermen; indeed, at Dunkirk, when the church was burned down in the sixteenth century by the French, it was entirely rebuilt by the contribution called "le filet saint," from an ancient custom among the fishermen of having one net so called, the produce of which was set apart for the church.54. Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.Towards the lighthouse are the ruins of the old town of Penmarch, much celebrated in the maritime history of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries; its commerce extended even to Spain, and the riches of its inhabitants were so surpassingly great, that they drank out of silver cups, and the lords of a manor near the Torche furnished the silk required to line the road traversed by religious processions, their wealth being due to the "viande de carême," that is to say, to the cod fishery. But the discovery of Newfoundland deprived them of this lucrative monopoly, and the ravages of Fontenelle le Ligueur[pg 265][pg 266][pg 267]completed their ruin. All now is a scene of desolation. Penmarch has been called the Palmyra of Brittany.Guy Eder Fontenelle, the Leaguer, who spread terror and devastation throughout Brittany in the sixteenth century, was a member of the Beaumanoir family; the name he adopted was that of one of the family estates. He was born in the Château of Beaumanoir (near Evran), and his elder brother early foresaw his guilty career. He escaped from college and united himself with a set of young men as lawless as himself; they formed themselves into a band, which soon became the dread of all Brittany. They ravaged the whole of Tréguier and Cornouaille, surprised the châteaux of Coëtfrec and others, took the church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged, Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300 vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his head-quarters, issuing from his stronghold to devastate the country. He murdered above fifteen hundred peasants at Plougastel, sank an English ship, without allowing her crew a moment to save themselves, imprisoned and tortured at Douarnenez[pg 268]all who fell into his hands. His victims never survived his cruelties more than three or four days, when their bodies were cast out into the bay to the fishes. These were only a few of his atrocities. As he called himself one of the leaders of the League in Brittany, the Duke de Mercœur, its chief, indignant at the barbarities perpetrated in its name, caused Fontenelle to be imprisoned, but he was liberated on paying a ransom; and, fearing he would give Douarnenez over to the Spaniards, Fontenelle was included in the pacification of Mercœur with Henry IV. But four years later he was implicated in the conspiracy of Biron; on which occasion all his old crimes were raked up against him, and he was condemned to be dragged on a hurdle, and broken alive upon the wheel, which sentence was executed on the Place de Grève at Paris in 1602. In consideration of the illustrious house to whom he belonged, the king granted that in the act of condemnation he should not go by his own name. We next went to see the church of Saint Nonna in the town, the largest of the numerous churches in the parish of Penmarch. Ships are sculptured in front of the tower, as at St. Guenolé. On the left of the porch is a pretty window, the mullions formed by three fleur de lis. In the church is a curious old painting styled, "Procession du vœu de Louis XIII." Portraits of the King, the Dauphin (Louis XIV.),[pg 269]Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Richelieu, are introduced, and a view of the church of St. Nonna is in the background.55. Fleur-de-Lisé Window, Church ofSt. Nonna, Penmarch.On our way home we passed, on the left, at Kerscaven, two menhirs, one curiously furrowed and shaped like a half-opened fan.We had a pretty drive from Pont l'Abbé, with occasional views of the Bay of Audierne, extending from Penmarch to the Pointe du Raz. Midway the horse, going down a steep hill, fell, and we all found ourselves upon the road, but happily unhurt. We met numbers of peasants returning from the fair at Pontcroix; and our driver, a butcher by trade, coolly stopped the vehicle, to discourse with them on the price of stock, and to handle the sheep they had bought. Our drive was enlivened with occasional peeps of the Bay of Audierne till we reached the little port of that name, the view of which is very pretty. Audierne is approached by a bridge across the river or estuary. At its entrance is a lighthouse, and on the right a sandy bay, with bathing-machines in the season.[pg 270]56. Pointe du Raz.The town consists of three streets of cut granite houses, with the name of the builder and the date of their construction inscribed over the door. Fishing is the occupation of the inhabitants, and the table-d'hôte at our comfortable, clean, little inn was plentifully supplied with magnificent john dorys, large red mullet, langoustes, and fish of every description.[pg 271]From Audierne we took a carriage to visit the Pointe du Raz, apromontoryso famous for its rocks and wrecks. We went through a treeless country; near a pretty bay, on the left, is the chapel of Notre Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, destined chiefly for sailors, after which the country becomes more wild, barren, and cheerless. We passed over a bridge which no Breton would dare to cross at night, for fear of being flung by the spirits into the river. According to their belief, a hare appears on the bridge, and terrifies the horses, who throw their rider, and the traveller is dragged by the phantom into the muddy river, where he is kept till morning's dawn, when he is allowed to pursue his way, exhausted with cold, and half dead with fright. They are very superstitious here, as in all Cornouaille. A writer says, "every nation of the earth has its superstitions and absurdities, but Brittany has those of all other nations united." An old woman in a village hard by, said our driver, has never been seen inside the walls of a church; the people say she has sold herself to the evil one, and no one dares go near or speak to her.On the left is the pretty steeple of the church of Plogoff, situated on an eminence, and dedicated to Saint Collédoc, a Welsh bishop of the sixth century, contemporary of King Arthur, and associated with many of the doings of Queen Guinevre and the knights of the Round Table. Lescoff is the last[pg 272]village we passed through before—after driving over a barren plain—we arrived at the lighthouse, built thirty years back at the Pointe.We walked thence to the Pointe, a gigantic and magnificent mass of rocks, eighty feet above the level of the sea. We met with a good-natured woman, who led the young people over the rocks to look down the "Enfer de Plogoff." They had a slippery scramble to reach the hole, a kind of tunnel through which the sea rushes with great violence, so much more terrible than that of Penmarch, that the noise has been compared to the distant roaring of some thousands of wild beasts issuing from the depths of a forest. In the mean time, we remained seated on the bank enjoying the view. On the south lay the Bay of Audierne, extending in the form of a crescent, the promontories of Penmarch and Raz forming the extreme points. The currents, and the numerous rocks of the bay, render it a dangerous coast, formerly peopled by barbarous wreckers, who despoiled the shipwrecked mariners as our Cornish men of old. Opposite the Raz, about seven miles distant, is the Island of Sein, and to the right, the Baie des Trépassés. The island of Sein was anciently the seat of an oracle, interpreted by nine Druidesses, who were versed in every art and science. Moreover, they appear to have been accomplished needlewomen; for a Breton chronicler, giving an account of thecoronation[pg 273]of an early king (Erech) at Nantes, describes his mantle as embroidered by these priestesses with figures of Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Their skill in divination caused them to be associated with the fairies; and Morgan—i.e."born of the sea"—one of these priestesses, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, was famous among the British fairies.
44. Salt-pans, with Le Croisic in the distance.These salt-pans, cut out into small squares, have the appearance of one great chess-board, interspersed with occasional hamlets and woods. The working of them employs the whole population of the district.They consist of large basins, dug at different depths, into which the water of the sea is introduced, and are divided into squares called "œillets." The salt-water is turned upon the marsh by canals styled "étiers," edged with narrow paths or roads called "bossis," elevated, some of them, three or four feet above the marsh; on these the newly collected salt is generally laid. The water passes by a subterranean conduit, the "coëf," into the "vasière,"[pg 234]where the first evaporation takes place; and then successively into the "cobiers," "fares," and "adernemètres," until it flows finally into the "œillets," where the salt is definitively formed. Each "œillet" is about 20 feet by 30. The heat of the sun and the wind effect the evaporation, which the paludier assists by stirring the water from time to time. The salt which forms on the surface resembles a kind of white cream, and exhales an agreeable perfume resembling violets. This is the finest salt; that which falls to the bottom of the salt-pan is of a greyish cast. The salt when formed is then scraped off, drained, and the women collect it and stack it on the "bossis" into conical heaps, which they cover with a coating of clay, to render them impervious to weather. In the salting season, the salt marshes with their innumerable hillocks of white salt have the appearance of a vast tent-covered camp. Each "œillet" produces about 150 lbs. of salt. The same salt-pans are worked from century to century by the same "paludiers" or their descendants. The proprietors may change, but the workmen remain, considering the salt-pans their prescriptive inheritance. For payment, they receive one-fourth of the salt. The dress of the paludier is a smock-frock of irreproachable whiteness, with pockets, white shoes, gaiters, and linen breeches, an enormous black flap hat turned up on the side in a point or horn. The[pg 235][pg 236][pg 237]young man wears the point over the ear, the married turns it behind, and the widower in front. We reached the Bourg de Batz in time for vespers, and had an opportunity of seeing the people in their Sunday dress. The men wear three or four cloth waistcoats, all of different lengths, so as to let the various colours, red, white, and blue, with which they are bound, appear one above the other in tiers, a muslin turnover collar, full plaited breeches[pg 238]of fine cloth tied at the knee by garters of floating ribbon, white woollen stockings with worked clocks and light yellow shoes, their flap hats ornamented with a roll of chenille of varied colours. The headdress of the women is singular and most intricate. The hair, in two rolls, twisted round with white tape, forms a kind of coronet across their heads; over this, a piece of net is drawn tight, forming a sort of cap, describing a peak behind, and crossing in front like a handkerchief.45. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his working dress.The dress consists of several petticoats of cloth plaited, red body, turned-up sleeves, and large coloured bibs or plastrons which they call "pièces," of the same stuff as their dresses. The girls' aprons are plain, without pockets, but the women's are of coloured silk, some of a rich brocade. A shawl with fringed border completes the costume. Some of the women had their heads and shoulders wrapped up in a triangular, black, shaggy sheepskin mantle; these were widows.At the inn where we alighted, they keep the splendid costumes worn by the people at weddings and other great occasions; and, by paying them for their trouble, they will put them on for inspection. The bride's costumes are of great magnificence; they array themselves in three different dresses on their wedding-day. First, a gown of white velvet, with apron of moire antique; secondly, one of violet[pg 239]velvet; and the third equally costly. Embroidered sleeves, the "pièce" of cloth of gold, the petticoats looped up with a wide sash, embroidered in gold, and gold clocks to the stockings.46. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his wedding dress.We were shown a state bed, or "lit de mariage," a tall four-post, painted red, with green reps tester and curtains, embroidered with yellow chenille. The great sign of wealth is to have the bedding reach to the top of the bedstead. To effect this,[pg 240]the base is formed of bundles of vine-stalks, over which is spread the straw, and when this scaffolding has been raised some feet, a paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind of lace or cutwork.The houses are solidly built of granite, and slated; the windows large. The furniture is good, generally comprising a well-waxed carved oak armoire, upon which are arranged earthenware plates of various colours.The paludiers of Batz preserve their original type distinct from the peasants of the environs; and form, like the Jews, a separate people, intermarrying among themselves, retaining their own peculiar manners and customs. They are supposed to descend from a Saxon colony. The paludier is tall in stature; their women remarkable for their fair complexions, which contrast strongly with their sunburnt neighbours. They are loyal and devout, true to their word, courageous and enduring; though the paludier is miserably poor, from the oppressiveness of the salt-tax, he never complains. Begging is unknown. Their food consists of rye bread, porridge of black corn, potatoes, and shellfish.[pg 241]They are sober, and drink wine in small quantities.Formerly the salt was distributed over the adjacent provinces by means of "saulniers," the journeymen labourers of the paludiers. Dressed in their picturesque costume, with a train of mules, whose tinkling bells announced their arrival, the saulnier was welcomed in every village where he sold his salt or exchanged it for other merchandize. "Le sucre des pauvres," as salt has been aptly called, was severely taxed under the old régime; distributions of the "sel royale" were yearly made by the Government among the gentry of the provinces, but the poor, who had no such privileges, severely felt the oppression, and smuggling was consequently extensively carried on, and the "faux saulnier," with his double bag across his shoulders, secretly sold salt upon which the gabelle had not been paid. With a faux saulnier originated the great peasant rising in Brittany, the Chouan war; a war to which Napoleon said, "All preceding wars have been but games." Jean, father of the four brothers Cottereau, was a maker of wooden shoes, and lived in a forest near Laval (Maine). From his solitary life he had acquired such sombre, wild, melancholy habits, that people gave him the name of Chouan, Maine patois for Chat-huant, and his family received the sobriquet long before the insurrection of 1792. Jean[pg 242]Cottereau was the most celebrated faux saulnier of Maine; he had accidentally killed a revenue officer in one of his encounters, and his heroic mother made a journey to Versailles, barefooted, "sur le cuir de ses pieds," to obtain his pardon. Jean's master and patron was guillotined, his two sisters shared the same fate, and one of his brothers died of his wounds, and his body was disinterred by the Revolutionists. These personal wrongs, the treatment of the King, the interdiction of the Catholic religion, its processions, its bells, the persecution of its ministers, all goaded the Breton peasantry to revolt; and Jean was the first to fire a gun against a Republican at the cry of "Vive le Roi." The rising began with a few peasants, armed with a gun or a stick, dressed in short breeches open at the knee, with leather gaiters, and coloured garters; their long hair streaming over the shoulders, their heads covered with a wide-brimmed hat, or brown or red cap, sabots tipped with iron, and, in cold weather, a loose coat of goatskin. The Chouans assembled in small bands and attacked the Republicans at night in ambuscade, and when they had killed a few "Bleus" disappeared among the corn-fields or the furze-bushes. Simple peasants, they fought against the Republicans in defence of the altar and the throne. Their "commandements" ran thus:—[pg 243]“Ton Dieu, ton Roy, tu servirasJusqu'à la mort fidèlement.Docile à tes chefs tu seras,Afin de vaincre surement.Sobre et discret te montreras,Buvant peu, parlant rarement;De ton chef jamais n'agirasAttendant le commandement;Violemment rien ne prendras,Mais en payant exactement.Age et sexe respecteras,Etant soldat et non brigand.Les comités corrigeras,Et les mouchards chrétiennement;Né Breton, tu n'oublieras,Afin d'agir loyalement.Dans le succès clement seras;Dans le malheur, ferme et constant.Chaque jour ton Dieu tu prieras;Que peux tu sans son bras puissant?”Such were the first Chouans: they had no organisation until they followed Larochejaquelin and the Vendean army to Granville, and accompanied them in their retreat; when their numbers were materially increased and their character completely changed by the deserters and brigands, who joined and eventually succeeded the peasantry.The church of Batz is of cut stone. It has a square tower, surmounted by a cupola steeple, which with that of Le Croisic serves as a landmark to vessels having to steer between the two dangerous rocks Le Four, in front of Le Croisic, and Les Blanches, situated near the mouth of the Loire.[pg 244]The choir is inclined, like that of St. Pol and others in Brittany. On one of the bosses in the interior is a grotesque carving of a man torn to pieces by the seven capital sins. On others are the Santa Veronica, the Good Shepherd, Ste. Barbara, &c. Near the church are the pretty ruins of the chapel of Notre Dame-du-Mûrier.We drove on to Le Croisic, in Breton, "Little Cross;" so called from the small chapel of the Crucifix, built to commemorate the baptism by St. Felix, Bishop of Nantes, in the sixth century, of the Saxon colony who occupied the peninsula. Le Croisic was one of the first towns in Brittany which received Christianity, and bears for its arms a cross between four ermines. Along the road-side are cisterns or wells dug in the sand, and girls were filling with water the classical stone pitchers they carried upon their heads—quite an Eastern picture, suggestive of Rebecca and the damsels of her country. Le Croisic is almost surrounded by the sea, low, and without shelter, which renders it cold, damp, and exposed to the winds; turf is almost the only fuel used.It is much frequented as a watering-place, and has an Etablissement. It is also a sea-port, with a rocky entrance to the harbour, and the dangerous rock with its lighthouse, called Le Four, extending for a league in front. The inhabitants of Le Croisic[pg 245]are principally engaged in the sardine fishery, and the curing of these fish consumes much of the salt of the marshes. The people complain this year they have no large orders for sardines, and there is but little white salt.The chapel of St. Goustan, on the edge of the harbour, is singularly built; its western gable perched upon a little rock, half of which is inside and half outside the building. The church is no longer open for Divine service; but the peasant-girl who desires to know if she will be married this year, tries to pass a pin through the bars of the northern window without touching the wall. On the opposite side of the estuary are Périac and La Turbale, both seats of the sardine fishery. Returning the way we came, we stopped at the Plage Valentin, another bathing-place in a pretty little bay; with dressing-rooms and a small Etablissement. An omnibus conveys the bathers from Le Croisic, for two sous. The sea looks more inviting here and at Poulignan than at Le Croisic, where there is so much seaweed in the harbour. We returned through Batz; the cathedral tower of Saint Aubin at Guérande is to be seen at a great distance, and is a prominent object in the scenery; the whole country is covered with salt-pans. Guérande stands on a height, and turning back, the view of the whole district is most extensive. We passed through Saillé, where[pg 246]Duke John IV. married Joan of Navarre, afterwards the second wife of Henry of Lancaster.Guérande, built on a vine-covered granite slope, is a singular old feudal town of the fifteenth century. It was fortified by Duke John V., and is nearly surrounded by granite walls, with ten towers and four old gateways, placed at the cardinal points of the compass. St. Michel, the principal gate, or rather a fortress, is flanked by two high towers, and contains the prison, archives, and hôtel de ville. A moat formerly surrounded the walls; but it has long been filled in, and boulevards substituted. From the battlements hang festoons of honeysuckle and ivy, and the moat is full of the yellow iris and water-lilies; nevertheless, Guérande has an austere, sombre aspect. There is a fine terrace walk, called the Mail, commanding a view of the whole country over Poulignan, Batz, and Le Croisic—a tented plain of salt.47. La Roche Bernard.The church of St. Aubin has Romanesque columns, with grotesque capitals. In one, two persons are sawing a third, stretched upon a wheel. On the left of the double-arched porch, is a pulpit outside the church, and there is some good painted glass within. Notre Dame Blanche, a chapel of the fourteenth century, is a pretty little building with stone pulpit and a sculptured group of Notre Dame-de-la-Salette with the two peasant children of Alsace.[pg 247]Next day, we took a private carriage for La Roche Bernard; the road lying over a wide extent of land through Herbignac to La Roche Bernard (Morbihan), which is most picturesquely situated on a rocky height overhanging the Vilaine, here traversed by an elegant suspension-bridge, opened in 1839, about 666 feet long and above 108 feet above high-water mark—a terrible dizzy height to cross even in calm weather. A few years since, the postman, his cart, and horse were all blown over into the river, and nothing more was ever heard of them.[pg 248]We went fishing several days in a large étang close to La Roche Bernard, and one evening took a pretty walk over the hills to another pond situated in a lovely secluded valley near a water-mill. La Roche Bernard was an early Protestant colony, founded by the Sieur d'Andelot, Seigneur of La Roche Bernard, brother to Admiral Coligny, and one of the firmest supporters of Calvinism. The Calvinists used to assemble at his château of Bretesch, where the minister of La Roche Bernard came to preach to them. D'Andelot and his sister, who was equally zealous in the cause, are, it is said, interred at La Roche Bernard. Near the Halles is a square block of houses; one of timber, with "Voie au Duc" inscribed upon it. These houses are said to have belonged to a Protestant community, and all to communicate with each other.The evening of our arrival there was a wedding supper given at our hotel, the grand dinner having taken place elsewhere. The bride wore a white sash, with wreaths of white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music[pg 249]consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France. How it came to be introduced into Scotland and expel the harp—which was as much the original music of Scotland as of Wales and Ireland—is a mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now become national.On market-day numbers of the women from Muzillac, a place about ten miles distant, came in with their fruit. They all wear an enormous plaited black cap, which looks like the cowl of a friar. The graceful form of the earthenware pots attracted our attention: probably they came from the adjacent town of Herbignac. The 15th August, Fête de la Vierge, and also that of the Emperor, was kept as a general holiday. An immense concourse of people arrived from the neighbourhood, and attended the six o'clock mass. We walked to the quay, to see the sports on the water; the spectators picturesquely grouped on a mass of bare rocks, commanding a pretty view up and down the river.[pg 250]The amusements consisted of some races, and a mât de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a potato, and placed on each end of the window sill.Next day we left by diligence for Vannes, passing through Muzillac and on to Auray, where we took the steamer for Belle Isle.A steamer sails daily from the quay at Auray. The banks of the River Loch are very picturesque, the pine-trees (Pinus maritima) growing to the water's edge. On the left, the islands of the Morbihan; on the right, Locmariaker; the view extending to Carnac and Mont St. Michel, over the whole sweep of the bay formed by the peninsula of Quiberon.At Port Navalo we emerged from the Morbihan, and, on our right, passed the little rocky island of Teigneuse, with its lighthouse; and, on the left, those of Houat and Haedik (the duck and the duckling); the former famous as the retreat of St. Gildas, who leaped from here with one bound, a distance of ten miles, to the peninsula of Rhuys, where he built his monastery. From Auray to Belle Isle is in all forty-eight miles—ten miles of river to Port[pg 251]Navalo, the rest open sea. After eight hours' sail we reached Le Palais, the port and principal town of Belle Isle, built on the north-east side, and overhung by the citadel, the work of Vauban. The town consists of one principal street—the Rue Trochu—so called after the General of that name and his brother, who were the first, at the beginning of this century, to introduce agriculture into the island. We passed, at a distance to the right, the model farm of M. Trochu fils, on our way across the island to the lighthouse,—a cheerless drive, as there are no trees to be seen except near Le Palais. When M. Trochu commenced his labours, agriculture was little attended to in France, but he persevered in his exertions, beginning by clearing about sixty acres of granite rock, a land covered with heath and furze, setting at defiance the Breton saying, "Lande tu fus, lande tu es, lande tu seras." This same district is now covered with rich meadows, fine woods, productive arable fields, and magnificent pasture land, on which horses are extensively reared.48. Entrance to Le Palais, Belle Isle.We gathered on the heathy moor three kinds of heath, the Cornish among others. The artichoke grows wild in the waste grounds. Wheat, turnips, beetroot, Indian corn, and potatoes, are the chief produce of the land in cultivation. This last vegetable was introduced by the families from Nova[pg 252]Scotia (Acadia), who settled in Belle Isle, after that province was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, in 1766. This was several years before Parmentier had extended the use of the potato, or "truffe rouge," as it was first called, over other parts of France. Indian corn was probably also brought in by the Nova Scotians. The leaves are constantly cut during its growth as fodder for the cattle, so that the cob hardly attains a foot in height from the ground. On the left of our road we saw in the distance the village of Bangor, which gives its name to one of the four districts into which Belle Isle is divided. A little south is the fine granite lighthouse, of the stupendous height of 450 feet. We toiled up 255 steps (223 stone and 32 iron) before we gained the lantern, and, though the view was very extensive, we were rejoiced at finding ourselves safe down. One of the guardians had been waylaid, kicked, and beaten, a few evenings before, for some slight grudge. He seemed in great suffering, but had no doctor; the Breton, in his simple confiding faith—that with the Almighty are the issues of life and death, and that illness will end according to His decree—considers the calling in of a medical adviser but an unnecessary expense to his family. From the lighthouse we walked to the sea-shore. Belle Isle is a table-land, surrounded by steep cliffs, averaging 130 feet in height, which can only be[pg 253][pg 254][pg 255]descended to the shore in particular places. We walked to the Grotte du Port Coton, where begins the "Mer Sauvage," as it is called, an extent of five to six miles of most picturesque rocks, some elevated from 130 to 160 feet above the level of the sea, jagged and torn into most fantastic forms by the ceaseless dashing of the waters of the Atlantic, which have formed various grottoes in the cliffs. We descended into one of these caverns by a narrow gulley, but could not proceed far, as the tide was entering fast, and would soon have surrounded us, cutting off all means of retreat.49. Device of Fouquet.It reminded us of the description in the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne' of the grotto at Locmaria, which was blown up, and crushed the mousquetaire Porthos, at the moment of his and Aramis' triumph over the soldiers of the King. So great at times is the fury of the waves, that our guide at the lighthouse told us he had seen on several occasions the spray driven over to Le Palais, nearly five miles distant. Continuing our walk along the cliffs, we came to an enormous mass of rock, standing far out detached from the cliff, and covered with screaming sea-gulls. We again descended by another fissure into a pretty sandy cove, surrounded by the same wild granite rocks; but in most places there is no beach at all. It was now high water, so it was useless to attempt the Grotte des Apothécaires,—the finest, they say, of[pg 256]them all, and we returned to Le Palais well pleased with the remarkably wild coast we had seen. Belle-isle forms now a canton in the department of Morbihan. In ancient days it belonged to the Abbot of Saint-Croix, at Quimperlé, who sold it, in the time of Charles IX., to the Maréchal de Gondi, and, in 1573, it was erected into a Marquisate. (Cardinal de Retz lived here after his escape from the castle of Nantes.) One of his successors, Henri de Gondi, being overwhelmed with debt, sold the island to Nicolas Fouquet, the ill-fated Superintendent of Finance, on whose disgrace, and his being subsequently consigned to the fortress of Pignarol, his grandson, the Marquis de Belle Isle, exchanged it with Louis XV. for the Comté of Gisors, erected into a duchy in 1742. Fouquet built a palace and completed the citadel, for which he employed Vauban. He also projected fortifications to enclose the town, which are now in course of completion by the Emperor, after Vauban's plans. Several guns had just been landed, the day before we visited the citadel, to see which an order is requisite. Near the citadel is the "Maison centrale des détenus," now only containing a few old men, too feeble for hard labour. We were too tired to walk to look at the celebrated cistern of Vauban, which holds, we were told, above thirty thousand imperial gallons of water. Fouquet's palace was, it is said, destroyed to complete[pg 257]the line of fortifications. A house was pointed out to us as having formed part of the original building. Some years since, a stone was picked up in the harbour bearing his ambitious device—a squirrel, with the motto,Quo non ascendum?"To where shall I not rise?" The greater number of the population of Belle Isle are employed in the fisheries; of these the sardine and the tunny are the chief. There are large establishments for curing sardines, which are very abundant, and lobsters, taken in the rocks of Belle Isle and the little islands of Houat and Hædic, are sent to London and Paris. The boats go as far as Spain, to the coast of Catalonia, for the tunny fishery, which extends from August to the beginning of October. These fish are taken by lines hung along the sides of the vessel, with a bell attached to each to give notice of a bite. The most esteemed part of the tunny is the underneath, or "panse." The next morning we sailed back to Auray. The nearest point to Belle Isle is Quiberon, only ten miles from Le Palais. From Auray by rail to Quimper, where we took the diligence to Pont l'Abbé, an old town formerly of[pg 258]some importance, in the midst of a fertile, rich country. The costume worn at Pont l'Abbé and along the Bay of Audierne is very singular. The cap, or "bigouden," is composed of two pieces: first, a kind of skull-cap, or serre-tête, fitting tight to the head over the ears, then a little round bit, resembling, the young people said, a "pork-pie" hat, made of starched linen, pinched into a three-cornered peak, the middle peak embroidered and tied on by a piece[pg 259]of tape fastening under the chin; the hair is turned up, "en chignon," over the skull-cap. The body of the dress has a large "pièce" of red or yellow, and sleeves to match. The men wear several very short coats, one over the other, the shortest trimmed with fringe; sometimes sentences are embroidered with coloured woollens round the edge. It was market day; the women were sitting, with distaff and spindle, on each side of the entrance to the Halle. Some of them have short bead-chains with a ring, attached to the left shoulder, to stick their distaffs in when not at work. There was abundance of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, and sardines, which, with bigoudens and other articles of dress, formed the principal commodities for sale. Pont l'Abbé and its Port, Loctudy, carry on an extensive trade with Jersey, and large quantities of potatoes are exported to that island. There were some Jersey merchants at the table-d'hôte.50. Peasant Girl. Pont l'Abbé.The church of Pont l'Abbé has only one aisle. There is a fine rose window over the west entrance, of great lightness and richness, with a smaller one at the left; at the east end is another rose window of larger dimensions, the mullions forming geometric patterns, but differing in design from the other. The French architects always took great pains in the decoration of this part of the church, and these wheel windows really rival those of Rouen.[pg 260]51. Apse of the Church, Loctudy.Attached to the church, are the cloisters of the Carmelite convent to which the church formerly belonged, built in the beginning of the fifteenth century by Bertram de Rosmadec, who had so much contributed to the completion of the cathedral at Quimper. The square is surrounded by an interlaced[pg 261]circular arcade, forming trefoiled pointed arches, all in excellent preservation. The access to the cloisters is through the conventual building, now a private house and garden, the proprietor kindly granting us permission.We drove to Loctudy, on the mouth of the Pont l'Abbé river opposite the little island of Tudy, called after an English saint of that name. Fleeing from the persecutions of the Picts and Scots who desolated his country, he founded here, at the end of the fifth century, a considerable monastery, afterwards destroyed by the Normans.At Loctudy is a curious Romanesque church, one of the best preserved in Brittany, which dates from the Templars of the twelfth century. It has a nave with aisles going all round the choir, and three round apsidal chapels at the end. The five arches on each side of the nave are horse-shoe shaped, and the choir is surrounded by the same number of high narrow arches, resting on columns with grotesque capitals of complicated design. The three chapels behind are seen through the opening; on one of the capitals is sculptured the cross of the Templars. The whole building is spoiled by whitewash.“Chevaliers en ce monde cyNe peuvent vivre sans souci;Ils doivent le peuple defendre,Et leur sang pour la foi espandre.”Eustache Deschamps.[pg 262]52. Torche of Penmarch.We engaged a rough kind of vehicle, much like a butcher's cart, to visit the Torche de Penmarch, a rocky promontory, so called from its fancied resemblance to a horse's head, forming the southern extremity of the department of Finistère. The Torche is a mass of rocks separated from the mainland by a chasm called the "Saut de Moine," because[pg 263]an Irish saint, named Viaud, jumped across it on his landing. In rough weather, the noise made by the sea dashing against its sides and rushing through the crevices of the rocks, is said to be heard at Quimper, a distance of twenty-one miles. A line of rocks runs all along the coast, marked by a lighthouse at Penmarch; we proceeded to another group of rocks near which M. de Châtellier, a proprietor and antiquary of this country, has built a house for painting and enjoying the scenery. One of our party clambered down to see the "Trou d'Enfer," a tremendously deep hole in the rocks, the bottom covered with a pink sort of sea-weed, and the water as clear as crystal. The whole country is a dreary sandy level, with salt-marshes, over which we passed to the ruined church of St. Fiacre, and close by is that of St. Guenolé, both situated near the sea. The countryman who showed us the church, knelt reverently down at the threshold and put up a short prayer before he entered the sacred building. The general devoutness and strong faith of the Bretons is most impressive and genuine, mixed, no doubt, with great superstition; but, as Wesley says, "Heaven makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the faith notwithstanding the superstition."53. Ship Sculptured on the Walls.Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.St. Guenolé consists of an unfinished square tower, with crocketed pinnacles and a porch of considerable size, under a large mullioned window of the[pg 264]fifteenth century. On each side of the porch are rude sculptures of ships and fishes, not uncommon in these parts, set there to show the church has been built with the thank-offerings of the fisher population of the district. In our tour we met with several churches with this sign, evidences of the piety of the fishermen; indeed, at Dunkirk, when the church was burned down in the sixteenth century by the French, it was entirely rebuilt by the contribution called "le filet saint," from an ancient custom among the fishermen of having one net so called, the produce of which was set apart for the church.54. Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.Towards the lighthouse are the ruins of the old town of Penmarch, much celebrated in the maritime history of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries; its commerce extended even to Spain, and the riches of its inhabitants were so surpassingly great, that they drank out of silver cups, and the lords of a manor near the Torche furnished the silk required to line the road traversed by religious processions, their wealth being due to the "viande de carême," that is to say, to the cod fishery. But the discovery of Newfoundland deprived them of this lucrative monopoly, and the ravages of Fontenelle le Ligueur[pg 265][pg 266][pg 267]completed their ruin. All now is a scene of desolation. Penmarch has been called the Palmyra of Brittany.Guy Eder Fontenelle, the Leaguer, who spread terror and devastation throughout Brittany in the sixteenth century, was a member of the Beaumanoir family; the name he adopted was that of one of the family estates. He was born in the Château of Beaumanoir (near Evran), and his elder brother early foresaw his guilty career. He escaped from college and united himself with a set of young men as lawless as himself; they formed themselves into a band, which soon became the dread of all Brittany. They ravaged the whole of Tréguier and Cornouaille, surprised the châteaux of Coëtfrec and others, took the church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged, Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300 vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his head-quarters, issuing from his stronghold to devastate the country. He murdered above fifteen hundred peasants at Plougastel, sank an English ship, without allowing her crew a moment to save themselves, imprisoned and tortured at Douarnenez[pg 268]all who fell into his hands. His victims never survived his cruelties more than three or four days, when their bodies were cast out into the bay to the fishes. These were only a few of his atrocities. As he called himself one of the leaders of the League in Brittany, the Duke de Mercœur, its chief, indignant at the barbarities perpetrated in its name, caused Fontenelle to be imprisoned, but he was liberated on paying a ransom; and, fearing he would give Douarnenez over to the Spaniards, Fontenelle was included in the pacification of Mercœur with Henry IV. But four years later he was implicated in the conspiracy of Biron; on which occasion all his old crimes were raked up against him, and he was condemned to be dragged on a hurdle, and broken alive upon the wheel, which sentence was executed on the Place de Grève at Paris in 1602. In consideration of the illustrious house to whom he belonged, the king granted that in the act of condemnation he should not go by his own name. We next went to see the church of Saint Nonna in the town, the largest of the numerous churches in the parish of Penmarch. Ships are sculptured in front of the tower, as at St. Guenolé. On the left of the porch is a pretty window, the mullions formed by three fleur de lis. In the church is a curious old painting styled, "Procession du vœu de Louis XIII." Portraits of the King, the Dauphin (Louis XIV.),[pg 269]Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Richelieu, are introduced, and a view of the church of St. Nonna is in the background.55. Fleur-de-Lisé Window, Church ofSt. Nonna, Penmarch.On our way home we passed, on the left, at Kerscaven, two menhirs, one curiously furrowed and shaped like a half-opened fan.We had a pretty drive from Pont l'Abbé, with occasional views of the Bay of Audierne, extending from Penmarch to the Pointe du Raz. Midway the horse, going down a steep hill, fell, and we all found ourselves upon the road, but happily unhurt. We met numbers of peasants returning from the fair at Pontcroix; and our driver, a butcher by trade, coolly stopped the vehicle, to discourse with them on the price of stock, and to handle the sheep they had bought. Our drive was enlivened with occasional peeps of the Bay of Audierne till we reached the little port of that name, the view of which is very pretty. Audierne is approached by a bridge across the river or estuary. At its entrance is a lighthouse, and on the right a sandy bay, with bathing-machines in the season.[pg 270]56. Pointe du Raz.The town consists of three streets of cut granite houses, with the name of the builder and the date of their construction inscribed over the door. Fishing is the occupation of the inhabitants, and the table-d'hôte at our comfortable, clean, little inn was plentifully supplied with magnificent john dorys, large red mullet, langoustes, and fish of every description.[pg 271]From Audierne we took a carriage to visit the Pointe du Raz, apromontoryso famous for its rocks and wrecks. We went through a treeless country; near a pretty bay, on the left, is the chapel of Notre Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, destined chiefly for sailors, after which the country becomes more wild, barren, and cheerless. We passed over a bridge which no Breton would dare to cross at night, for fear of being flung by the spirits into the river. According to their belief, a hare appears on the bridge, and terrifies the horses, who throw their rider, and the traveller is dragged by the phantom into the muddy river, where he is kept till morning's dawn, when he is allowed to pursue his way, exhausted with cold, and half dead with fright. They are very superstitious here, as in all Cornouaille. A writer says, "every nation of the earth has its superstitions and absurdities, but Brittany has those of all other nations united." An old woman in a village hard by, said our driver, has never been seen inside the walls of a church; the people say she has sold herself to the evil one, and no one dares go near or speak to her.On the left is the pretty steeple of the church of Plogoff, situated on an eminence, and dedicated to Saint Collédoc, a Welsh bishop of the sixth century, contemporary of King Arthur, and associated with many of the doings of Queen Guinevre and the knights of the Round Table. Lescoff is the last[pg 272]village we passed through before—after driving over a barren plain—we arrived at the lighthouse, built thirty years back at the Pointe.We walked thence to the Pointe, a gigantic and magnificent mass of rocks, eighty feet above the level of the sea. We met with a good-natured woman, who led the young people over the rocks to look down the "Enfer de Plogoff." They had a slippery scramble to reach the hole, a kind of tunnel through which the sea rushes with great violence, so much more terrible than that of Penmarch, that the noise has been compared to the distant roaring of some thousands of wild beasts issuing from the depths of a forest. In the mean time, we remained seated on the bank enjoying the view. On the south lay the Bay of Audierne, extending in the form of a crescent, the promontories of Penmarch and Raz forming the extreme points. The currents, and the numerous rocks of the bay, render it a dangerous coast, formerly peopled by barbarous wreckers, who despoiled the shipwrecked mariners as our Cornish men of old. Opposite the Raz, about seven miles distant, is the Island of Sein, and to the right, the Baie des Trépassés. The island of Sein was anciently the seat of an oracle, interpreted by nine Druidesses, who were versed in every art and science. Moreover, they appear to have been accomplished needlewomen; for a Breton chronicler, giving an account of thecoronation[pg 273]of an early king (Erech) at Nantes, describes his mantle as embroidered by these priestesses with figures of Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Their skill in divination caused them to be associated with the fairies; and Morgan—i.e."born of the sea"—one of these priestesses, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, was famous among the British fairies.
44. Salt-pans, with Le Croisic in the distance.
44. Salt-pans, with Le Croisic in the distance.
These salt-pans, cut out into small squares, have the appearance of one great chess-board, interspersed with occasional hamlets and woods. The working of them employs the whole population of the district.
They consist of large basins, dug at different depths, into which the water of the sea is introduced, and are divided into squares called "œillets." The salt-water is turned upon the marsh by canals styled "étiers," edged with narrow paths or roads called "bossis," elevated, some of them, three or four feet above the marsh; on these the newly collected salt is generally laid. The water passes by a subterranean conduit, the "coëf," into the "vasière,"[pg 234]where the first evaporation takes place; and then successively into the "cobiers," "fares," and "adernemètres," until it flows finally into the "œillets," where the salt is definitively formed. Each "œillet" is about 20 feet by 30. The heat of the sun and the wind effect the evaporation, which the paludier assists by stirring the water from time to time. The salt which forms on the surface resembles a kind of white cream, and exhales an agreeable perfume resembling violets. This is the finest salt; that which falls to the bottom of the salt-pan is of a greyish cast. The salt when formed is then scraped off, drained, and the women collect it and stack it on the "bossis" into conical heaps, which they cover with a coating of clay, to render them impervious to weather. In the salting season, the salt marshes with their innumerable hillocks of white salt have the appearance of a vast tent-covered camp. Each "œillet" produces about 150 lbs. of salt. The same salt-pans are worked from century to century by the same "paludiers" or their descendants. The proprietors may change, but the workmen remain, considering the salt-pans their prescriptive inheritance. For payment, they receive one-fourth of the salt. The dress of the paludier is a smock-frock of irreproachable whiteness, with pockets, white shoes, gaiters, and linen breeches, an enormous black flap hat turned up on the side in a point or horn. The[pg 235][pg 236][pg 237]young man wears the point over the ear, the married turns it behind, and the widower in front. We reached the Bourg de Batz in time for vespers, and had an opportunity of seeing the people in their Sunday dress. The men wear three or four cloth waistcoats, all of different lengths, so as to let the various colours, red, white, and blue, with which they are bound, appear one above the other in tiers, a muslin turnover collar, full plaited breeches[pg 238]of fine cloth tied at the knee by garters of floating ribbon, white woollen stockings with worked clocks and light yellow shoes, their flap hats ornamented with a roll of chenille of varied colours. The headdress of the women is singular and most intricate. The hair, in two rolls, twisted round with white tape, forms a kind of coronet across their heads; over this, a piece of net is drawn tight, forming a sort of cap, describing a peak behind, and crossing in front like a handkerchief.
45. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his working dress.
45. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his working dress.
The dress consists of several petticoats of cloth plaited, red body, turned-up sleeves, and large coloured bibs or plastrons which they call "pièces," of the same stuff as their dresses. The girls' aprons are plain, without pockets, but the women's are of coloured silk, some of a rich brocade. A shawl with fringed border completes the costume. Some of the women had their heads and shoulders wrapped up in a triangular, black, shaggy sheepskin mantle; these were widows.
At the inn where we alighted, they keep the splendid costumes worn by the people at weddings and other great occasions; and, by paying them for their trouble, they will put them on for inspection. The bride's costumes are of great magnificence; they array themselves in three different dresses on their wedding-day. First, a gown of white velvet, with apron of moire antique; secondly, one of violet[pg 239]velvet; and the third equally costly. Embroidered sleeves, the "pièce" of cloth of gold, the petticoats looped up with a wide sash, embroidered in gold, and gold clocks to the stockings.
46. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his wedding dress.
46. Paludier of the Bourg de Batz, in his wedding dress.
We were shown a state bed, or "lit de mariage," a tall four-post, painted red, with green reps tester and curtains, embroidered with yellow chenille. The great sign of wealth is to have the bedding reach to the top of the bedstead. To effect this,[pg 240]the base is formed of bundles of vine-stalks, over which is spread the straw, and when this scaffolding has been raised some feet, a paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind of lace or cutwork.
The houses are solidly built of granite, and slated; the windows large. The furniture is good, generally comprising a well-waxed carved oak armoire, upon which are arranged earthenware plates of various colours.
The paludiers of Batz preserve their original type distinct from the peasants of the environs; and form, like the Jews, a separate people, intermarrying among themselves, retaining their own peculiar manners and customs. They are supposed to descend from a Saxon colony. The paludier is tall in stature; their women remarkable for their fair complexions, which contrast strongly with their sunburnt neighbours. They are loyal and devout, true to their word, courageous and enduring; though the paludier is miserably poor, from the oppressiveness of the salt-tax, he never complains. Begging is unknown. Their food consists of rye bread, porridge of black corn, potatoes, and shellfish.[pg 241]They are sober, and drink wine in small quantities.
Formerly the salt was distributed over the adjacent provinces by means of "saulniers," the journeymen labourers of the paludiers. Dressed in their picturesque costume, with a train of mules, whose tinkling bells announced their arrival, the saulnier was welcomed in every village where he sold his salt or exchanged it for other merchandize. "Le sucre des pauvres," as salt has been aptly called, was severely taxed under the old régime; distributions of the "sel royale" were yearly made by the Government among the gentry of the provinces, but the poor, who had no such privileges, severely felt the oppression, and smuggling was consequently extensively carried on, and the "faux saulnier," with his double bag across his shoulders, secretly sold salt upon which the gabelle had not been paid. With a faux saulnier originated the great peasant rising in Brittany, the Chouan war; a war to which Napoleon said, "All preceding wars have been but games." Jean, father of the four brothers Cottereau, was a maker of wooden shoes, and lived in a forest near Laval (Maine). From his solitary life he had acquired such sombre, wild, melancholy habits, that people gave him the name of Chouan, Maine patois for Chat-huant, and his family received the sobriquet long before the insurrection of 1792. Jean[pg 242]Cottereau was the most celebrated faux saulnier of Maine; he had accidentally killed a revenue officer in one of his encounters, and his heroic mother made a journey to Versailles, barefooted, "sur le cuir de ses pieds," to obtain his pardon. Jean's master and patron was guillotined, his two sisters shared the same fate, and one of his brothers died of his wounds, and his body was disinterred by the Revolutionists. These personal wrongs, the treatment of the King, the interdiction of the Catholic religion, its processions, its bells, the persecution of its ministers, all goaded the Breton peasantry to revolt; and Jean was the first to fire a gun against a Republican at the cry of "Vive le Roi." The rising began with a few peasants, armed with a gun or a stick, dressed in short breeches open at the knee, with leather gaiters, and coloured garters; their long hair streaming over the shoulders, their heads covered with a wide-brimmed hat, or brown or red cap, sabots tipped with iron, and, in cold weather, a loose coat of goatskin. The Chouans assembled in small bands and attacked the Republicans at night in ambuscade, and when they had killed a few "Bleus" disappeared among the corn-fields or the furze-bushes. Simple peasants, they fought against the Republicans in defence of the altar and the throne. Their "commandements" ran thus:—
“Ton Dieu, ton Roy, tu servirasJusqu'à la mort fidèlement.Docile à tes chefs tu seras,Afin de vaincre surement.Sobre et discret te montreras,Buvant peu, parlant rarement;De ton chef jamais n'agirasAttendant le commandement;Violemment rien ne prendras,Mais en payant exactement.Age et sexe respecteras,Etant soldat et non brigand.Les comités corrigeras,Et les mouchards chrétiennement;Né Breton, tu n'oublieras,Afin d'agir loyalement.Dans le succès clement seras;Dans le malheur, ferme et constant.Chaque jour ton Dieu tu prieras;Que peux tu sans son bras puissant?”
“Ton Dieu, ton Roy, tu serviras
Jusqu'à la mort fidèlement.
Docile à tes chefs tu seras,
Afin de vaincre surement.
Sobre et discret te montreras,
Buvant peu, parlant rarement;
De ton chef jamais n'agiras
Attendant le commandement;
Violemment rien ne prendras,
Mais en payant exactement.
Age et sexe respecteras,
Etant soldat et non brigand.
Les comités corrigeras,
Et les mouchards chrétiennement;
Né Breton, tu n'oublieras,
Afin d'agir loyalement.
Dans le succès clement seras;
Dans le malheur, ferme et constant.
Chaque jour ton Dieu tu prieras;
Que peux tu sans son bras puissant?”
Such were the first Chouans: they had no organisation until they followed Larochejaquelin and the Vendean army to Granville, and accompanied them in their retreat; when their numbers were materially increased and their character completely changed by the deserters and brigands, who joined and eventually succeeded the peasantry.
The church of Batz is of cut stone. It has a square tower, surmounted by a cupola steeple, which with that of Le Croisic serves as a landmark to vessels having to steer between the two dangerous rocks Le Four, in front of Le Croisic, and Les Blanches, situated near the mouth of the Loire.
The choir is inclined, like that of St. Pol and others in Brittany. On one of the bosses in the interior is a grotesque carving of a man torn to pieces by the seven capital sins. On others are the Santa Veronica, the Good Shepherd, Ste. Barbara, &c. Near the church are the pretty ruins of the chapel of Notre Dame-du-Mûrier.
We drove on to Le Croisic, in Breton, "Little Cross;" so called from the small chapel of the Crucifix, built to commemorate the baptism by St. Felix, Bishop of Nantes, in the sixth century, of the Saxon colony who occupied the peninsula. Le Croisic was one of the first towns in Brittany which received Christianity, and bears for its arms a cross between four ermines. Along the road-side are cisterns or wells dug in the sand, and girls were filling with water the classical stone pitchers they carried upon their heads—quite an Eastern picture, suggestive of Rebecca and the damsels of her country. Le Croisic is almost surrounded by the sea, low, and without shelter, which renders it cold, damp, and exposed to the winds; turf is almost the only fuel used.
It is much frequented as a watering-place, and has an Etablissement. It is also a sea-port, with a rocky entrance to the harbour, and the dangerous rock with its lighthouse, called Le Four, extending for a league in front. The inhabitants of Le Croisic[pg 245]are principally engaged in the sardine fishery, and the curing of these fish consumes much of the salt of the marshes. The people complain this year they have no large orders for sardines, and there is but little white salt.
The chapel of St. Goustan, on the edge of the harbour, is singularly built; its western gable perched upon a little rock, half of which is inside and half outside the building. The church is no longer open for Divine service; but the peasant-girl who desires to know if she will be married this year, tries to pass a pin through the bars of the northern window without touching the wall. On the opposite side of the estuary are Périac and La Turbale, both seats of the sardine fishery. Returning the way we came, we stopped at the Plage Valentin, another bathing-place in a pretty little bay; with dressing-rooms and a small Etablissement. An omnibus conveys the bathers from Le Croisic, for two sous. The sea looks more inviting here and at Poulignan than at Le Croisic, where there is so much seaweed in the harbour. We returned through Batz; the cathedral tower of Saint Aubin at Guérande is to be seen at a great distance, and is a prominent object in the scenery; the whole country is covered with salt-pans. Guérande stands on a height, and turning back, the view of the whole district is most extensive. We passed through Saillé, where[pg 246]Duke John IV. married Joan of Navarre, afterwards the second wife of Henry of Lancaster.
Guérande, built on a vine-covered granite slope, is a singular old feudal town of the fifteenth century. It was fortified by Duke John V., and is nearly surrounded by granite walls, with ten towers and four old gateways, placed at the cardinal points of the compass. St. Michel, the principal gate, or rather a fortress, is flanked by two high towers, and contains the prison, archives, and hôtel de ville. A moat formerly surrounded the walls; but it has long been filled in, and boulevards substituted. From the battlements hang festoons of honeysuckle and ivy, and the moat is full of the yellow iris and water-lilies; nevertheless, Guérande has an austere, sombre aspect. There is a fine terrace walk, called the Mail, commanding a view of the whole country over Poulignan, Batz, and Le Croisic—a tented plain of salt.
47. La Roche Bernard.
47. La Roche Bernard.
The church of St. Aubin has Romanesque columns, with grotesque capitals. In one, two persons are sawing a third, stretched upon a wheel. On the left of the double-arched porch, is a pulpit outside the church, and there is some good painted glass within. Notre Dame Blanche, a chapel of the fourteenth century, is a pretty little building with stone pulpit and a sculptured group of Notre Dame-de-la-Salette with the two peasant children of Alsace.[pg 247]Next day, we took a private carriage for La Roche Bernard; the road lying over a wide extent of land through Herbignac to La Roche Bernard (Morbihan), which is most picturesquely situated on a rocky height overhanging the Vilaine, here traversed by an elegant suspension-bridge, opened in 1839, about 666 feet long and above 108 feet above high-water mark—a terrible dizzy height to cross even in calm weather. A few years since, the postman, his cart, and horse were all blown over into the river, and nothing more was ever heard of them.[pg 248]We went fishing several days in a large étang close to La Roche Bernard, and one evening took a pretty walk over the hills to another pond situated in a lovely secluded valley near a water-mill. La Roche Bernard was an early Protestant colony, founded by the Sieur d'Andelot, Seigneur of La Roche Bernard, brother to Admiral Coligny, and one of the firmest supporters of Calvinism. The Calvinists used to assemble at his château of Bretesch, where the minister of La Roche Bernard came to preach to them. D'Andelot and his sister, who was equally zealous in the cause, are, it is said, interred at La Roche Bernard. Near the Halles is a square block of houses; one of timber, with "Voie au Duc" inscribed upon it. These houses are said to have belonged to a Protestant community, and all to communicate with each other.
The evening of our arrival there was a wedding supper given at our hotel, the grand dinner having taken place elsewhere. The bride wore a white sash, with wreaths of white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music[pg 249]consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France. How it came to be introduced into Scotland and expel the harp—which was as much the original music of Scotland as of Wales and Ireland—is a mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now become national.
On market-day numbers of the women from Muzillac, a place about ten miles distant, came in with their fruit. They all wear an enormous plaited black cap, which looks like the cowl of a friar. The graceful form of the earthenware pots attracted our attention: probably they came from the adjacent town of Herbignac. The 15th August, Fête de la Vierge, and also that of the Emperor, was kept as a general holiday. An immense concourse of people arrived from the neighbourhood, and attended the six o'clock mass. We walked to the quay, to see the sports on the water; the spectators picturesquely grouped on a mass of bare rocks, commanding a pretty view up and down the river.
The amusements consisted of some races, and a mât de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a potato, and placed on each end of the window sill.
Next day we left by diligence for Vannes, passing through Muzillac and on to Auray, where we took the steamer for Belle Isle.
A steamer sails daily from the quay at Auray. The banks of the River Loch are very picturesque, the pine-trees (Pinus maritima) growing to the water's edge. On the left, the islands of the Morbihan; on the right, Locmariaker; the view extending to Carnac and Mont St. Michel, over the whole sweep of the bay formed by the peninsula of Quiberon.
At Port Navalo we emerged from the Morbihan, and, on our right, passed the little rocky island of Teigneuse, with its lighthouse; and, on the left, those of Houat and Haedik (the duck and the duckling); the former famous as the retreat of St. Gildas, who leaped from here with one bound, a distance of ten miles, to the peninsula of Rhuys, where he built his monastery. From Auray to Belle Isle is in all forty-eight miles—ten miles of river to Port[pg 251]Navalo, the rest open sea. After eight hours' sail we reached Le Palais, the port and principal town of Belle Isle, built on the north-east side, and overhung by the citadel, the work of Vauban. The town consists of one principal street—the Rue Trochu—so called after the General of that name and his brother, who were the first, at the beginning of this century, to introduce agriculture into the island. We passed, at a distance to the right, the model farm of M. Trochu fils, on our way across the island to the lighthouse,—a cheerless drive, as there are no trees to be seen except near Le Palais. When M. Trochu commenced his labours, agriculture was little attended to in France, but he persevered in his exertions, beginning by clearing about sixty acres of granite rock, a land covered with heath and furze, setting at defiance the Breton saying, "Lande tu fus, lande tu es, lande tu seras." This same district is now covered with rich meadows, fine woods, productive arable fields, and magnificent pasture land, on which horses are extensively reared.
48. Entrance to Le Palais, Belle Isle.
48. Entrance to Le Palais, Belle Isle.
We gathered on the heathy moor three kinds of heath, the Cornish among others. The artichoke grows wild in the waste grounds. Wheat, turnips, beetroot, Indian corn, and potatoes, are the chief produce of the land in cultivation. This last vegetable was introduced by the families from Nova[pg 252]Scotia (Acadia), who settled in Belle Isle, after that province was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, in 1766. This was several years before Parmentier had extended the use of the potato, or "truffe rouge," as it was first called, over other parts of France. Indian corn was probably also brought in by the Nova Scotians. The leaves are constantly cut during its growth as fodder for the cattle, so that the cob hardly attains a foot in height from the ground. On the left of our road we saw in the distance the village of Bangor, which gives its name to one of the four districts into which Belle Isle is divided. A little south is the fine granite lighthouse, of the stupendous height of 450 feet. We toiled up 255 steps (223 stone and 32 iron) before we gained the lantern, and, though the view was very extensive, we were rejoiced at finding ourselves safe down. One of the guardians had been waylaid, kicked, and beaten, a few evenings before, for some slight grudge. He seemed in great suffering, but had no doctor; the Breton, in his simple confiding faith—that with the Almighty are the issues of life and death, and that illness will end according to His decree—considers the calling in of a medical adviser but an unnecessary expense to his family. From the lighthouse we walked to the sea-shore. Belle Isle is a table-land, surrounded by steep cliffs, averaging 130 feet in height, which can only be[pg 253][pg 254][pg 255]descended to the shore in particular places. We walked to the Grotte du Port Coton, where begins the "Mer Sauvage," as it is called, an extent of five to six miles of most picturesque rocks, some elevated from 130 to 160 feet above the level of the sea, jagged and torn into most fantastic forms by the ceaseless dashing of the waters of the Atlantic, which have formed various grottoes in the cliffs. We descended into one of these caverns by a narrow gulley, but could not proceed far, as the tide was entering fast, and would soon have surrounded us, cutting off all means of retreat.
49. Device of Fouquet.
49. Device of Fouquet.
It reminded us of the description in the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne' of the grotto at Locmaria, which was blown up, and crushed the mousquetaire Porthos, at the moment of his and Aramis' triumph over the soldiers of the King. So great at times is the fury of the waves, that our guide at the lighthouse told us he had seen on several occasions the spray driven over to Le Palais, nearly five miles distant. Continuing our walk along the cliffs, we came to an enormous mass of rock, standing far out detached from the cliff, and covered with screaming sea-gulls. We again descended by another fissure into a pretty sandy cove, surrounded by the same wild granite rocks; but in most places there is no beach at all. It was now high water, so it was useless to attempt the Grotte des Apothécaires,—the finest, they say, of[pg 256]them all, and we returned to Le Palais well pleased with the remarkably wild coast we had seen. Belle-isle forms now a canton in the department of Morbihan. In ancient days it belonged to the Abbot of Saint-Croix, at Quimperlé, who sold it, in the time of Charles IX., to the Maréchal de Gondi, and, in 1573, it was erected into a Marquisate. (Cardinal de Retz lived here after his escape from the castle of Nantes.) One of his successors, Henri de Gondi, being overwhelmed with debt, sold the island to Nicolas Fouquet, the ill-fated Superintendent of Finance, on whose disgrace, and his being subsequently consigned to the fortress of Pignarol, his grandson, the Marquis de Belle Isle, exchanged it with Louis XV. for the Comté of Gisors, erected into a duchy in 1742. Fouquet built a palace and completed the citadel, for which he employed Vauban. He also projected fortifications to enclose the town, which are now in course of completion by the Emperor, after Vauban's plans. Several guns had just been landed, the day before we visited the citadel, to see which an order is requisite. Near the citadel is the "Maison centrale des détenus," now only containing a few old men, too feeble for hard labour. We were too tired to walk to look at the celebrated cistern of Vauban, which holds, we were told, above thirty thousand imperial gallons of water. Fouquet's palace was, it is said, destroyed to complete[pg 257]the line of fortifications. A house was pointed out to us as having formed part of the original building. Some years since, a stone was picked up in the harbour bearing his ambitious device—a squirrel, with the motto,Quo non ascendum?"To where shall I not rise?" The greater number of the population of Belle Isle are employed in the fisheries; of these the sardine and the tunny are the chief. There are large establishments for curing sardines, which are very abundant, and lobsters, taken in the rocks of Belle Isle and the little islands of Houat and Hædic, are sent to London and Paris. The boats go as far as Spain, to the coast of Catalonia, for the tunny fishery, which extends from August to the beginning of October. These fish are taken by lines hung along the sides of the vessel, with a bell attached to each to give notice of a bite. The most esteemed part of the tunny is the underneath, or "panse." The next morning we sailed back to Auray. The nearest point to Belle Isle is Quiberon, only ten miles from Le Palais. From Auray by rail to Quimper, where we took the diligence to Pont l'Abbé, an old town formerly of[pg 258]some importance, in the midst of a fertile, rich country. The costume worn at Pont l'Abbé and along the Bay of Audierne is very singular. The cap, or "bigouden," is composed of two pieces: first, a kind of skull-cap, or serre-tête, fitting tight to the head over the ears, then a little round bit, resembling, the young people said, a "pork-pie" hat, made of starched linen, pinched into a three-cornered peak, the middle peak embroidered and tied on by a piece[pg 259]of tape fastening under the chin; the hair is turned up, "en chignon," over the skull-cap. The body of the dress has a large "pièce" of red or yellow, and sleeves to match. The men wear several very short coats, one over the other, the shortest trimmed with fringe; sometimes sentences are embroidered with coloured woollens round the edge. It was market day; the women were sitting, with distaff and spindle, on each side of the entrance to the Halle. Some of them have short bead-chains with a ring, attached to the left shoulder, to stick their distaffs in when not at work. There was abundance of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, and sardines, which, with bigoudens and other articles of dress, formed the principal commodities for sale. Pont l'Abbé and its Port, Loctudy, carry on an extensive trade with Jersey, and large quantities of potatoes are exported to that island. There were some Jersey merchants at the table-d'hôte.
50. Peasant Girl. Pont l'Abbé.
50. Peasant Girl. Pont l'Abbé.
The church of Pont l'Abbé has only one aisle. There is a fine rose window over the west entrance, of great lightness and richness, with a smaller one at the left; at the east end is another rose window of larger dimensions, the mullions forming geometric patterns, but differing in design from the other. The French architects always took great pains in the decoration of this part of the church, and these wheel windows really rival those of Rouen.
51. Apse of the Church, Loctudy.
51. Apse of the Church, Loctudy.
Attached to the church, are the cloisters of the Carmelite convent to which the church formerly belonged, built in the beginning of the fifteenth century by Bertram de Rosmadec, who had so much contributed to the completion of the cathedral at Quimper. The square is surrounded by an interlaced[pg 261]circular arcade, forming trefoiled pointed arches, all in excellent preservation. The access to the cloisters is through the conventual building, now a private house and garden, the proprietor kindly granting us permission.
We drove to Loctudy, on the mouth of the Pont l'Abbé river opposite the little island of Tudy, called after an English saint of that name. Fleeing from the persecutions of the Picts and Scots who desolated his country, he founded here, at the end of the fifth century, a considerable monastery, afterwards destroyed by the Normans.
At Loctudy is a curious Romanesque church, one of the best preserved in Brittany, which dates from the Templars of the twelfth century. It has a nave with aisles going all round the choir, and three round apsidal chapels at the end. The five arches on each side of the nave are horse-shoe shaped, and the choir is surrounded by the same number of high narrow arches, resting on columns with grotesque capitals of complicated design. The three chapels behind are seen through the opening; on one of the capitals is sculptured the cross of the Templars. The whole building is spoiled by whitewash.
“Chevaliers en ce monde cyNe peuvent vivre sans souci;Ils doivent le peuple defendre,Et leur sang pour la foi espandre.”Eustache Deschamps.
“Chevaliers en ce monde cy
Ne peuvent vivre sans souci;
Ils doivent le peuple defendre,
Et leur sang pour la foi espandre.”
Eustache Deschamps.
52. Torche of Penmarch.
52. Torche of Penmarch.
We engaged a rough kind of vehicle, much like a butcher's cart, to visit the Torche de Penmarch, a rocky promontory, so called from its fancied resemblance to a horse's head, forming the southern extremity of the department of Finistère. The Torche is a mass of rocks separated from the mainland by a chasm called the "Saut de Moine," because[pg 263]an Irish saint, named Viaud, jumped across it on his landing. In rough weather, the noise made by the sea dashing against its sides and rushing through the crevices of the rocks, is said to be heard at Quimper, a distance of twenty-one miles. A line of rocks runs all along the coast, marked by a lighthouse at Penmarch; we proceeded to another group of rocks near which M. de Châtellier, a proprietor and antiquary of this country, has built a house for painting and enjoying the scenery. One of our party clambered down to see the "Trou d'Enfer," a tremendously deep hole in the rocks, the bottom covered with a pink sort of sea-weed, and the water as clear as crystal. The whole country is a dreary sandy level, with salt-marshes, over which we passed to the ruined church of St. Fiacre, and close by is that of St. Guenolé, both situated near the sea. The countryman who showed us the church, knelt reverently down at the threshold and put up a short prayer before he entered the sacred building. The general devoutness and strong faith of the Bretons is most impressive and genuine, mixed, no doubt, with great superstition; but, as Wesley says, "Heaven makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the faith notwithstanding the superstition."
53. Ship Sculptured on the Walls.Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.
53. Ship Sculptured on the Walls.Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.
St. Guenolé consists of an unfinished square tower, with crocketed pinnacles and a porch of considerable size, under a large mullioned window of the[pg 264]fifteenth century. On each side of the porch are rude sculptures of ships and fishes, not uncommon in these parts, set there to show the church has been built with the thank-offerings of the fisher population of the district. In our tour we met with several churches with this sign, evidences of the piety of the fishermen; indeed, at Dunkirk, when the church was burned down in the sixteenth century by the French, it was entirely rebuilt by the contribution called "le filet saint," from an ancient custom among the fishermen of having one net so called, the produce of which was set apart for the church.
54. Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.
54. Church of St. Guenolé, Penmarch.
Towards the lighthouse are the ruins of the old town of Penmarch, much celebrated in the maritime history of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries; its commerce extended even to Spain, and the riches of its inhabitants were so surpassingly great, that they drank out of silver cups, and the lords of a manor near the Torche furnished the silk required to line the road traversed by religious processions, their wealth being due to the "viande de carême," that is to say, to the cod fishery. But the discovery of Newfoundland deprived them of this lucrative monopoly, and the ravages of Fontenelle le Ligueur[pg 265][pg 266][pg 267]completed their ruin. All now is a scene of desolation. Penmarch has been called the Palmyra of Brittany.
Guy Eder Fontenelle, the Leaguer, who spread terror and devastation throughout Brittany in the sixteenth century, was a member of the Beaumanoir family; the name he adopted was that of one of the family estates. He was born in the Château of Beaumanoir (near Evran), and his elder brother early foresaw his guilty career. He escaped from college and united himself with a set of young men as lawless as himself; they formed themselves into a band, which soon became the dread of all Brittany. They ravaged the whole of Tréguier and Cornouaille, surprised the châteaux of Coëtfrec and others, took the church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged, Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300 vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his head-quarters, issuing from his stronghold to devastate the country. He murdered above fifteen hundred peasants at Plougastel, sank an English ship, without allowing her crew a moment to save themselves, imprisoned and tortured at Douarnenez[pg 268]all who fell into his hands. His victims never survived his cruelties more than three or four days, when their bodies were cast out into the bay to the fishes. These were only a few of his atrocities. As he called himself one of the leaders of the League in Brittany, the Duke de Mercœur, its chief, indignant at the barbarities perpetrated in its name, caused Fontenelle to be imprisoned, but he was liberated on paying a ransom; and, fearing he would give Douarnenez over to the Spaniards, Fontenelle was included in the pacification of Mercœur with Henry IV. But four years later he was implicated in the conspiracy of Biron; on which occasion all his old crimes were raked up against him, and he was condemned to be dragged on a hurdle, and broken alive upon the wheel, which sentence was executed on the Place de Grève at Paris in 1602. In consideration of the illustrious house to whom he belonged, the king granted that in the act of condemnation he should not go by his own name. We next went to see the church of Saint Nonna in the town, the largest of the numerous churches in the parish of Penmarch. Ships are sculptured in front of the tower, as at St. Guenolé. On the left of the porch is a pretty window, the mullions formed by three fleur de lis. In the church is a curious old painting styled, "Procession du vœu de Louis XIII." Portraits of the King, the Dauphin (Louis XIV.),[pg 269]Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Richelieu, are introduced, and a view of the church of St. Nonna is in the background.
55. Fleur-de-Lisé Window, Church ofSt. Nonna, Penmarch.
55. Fleur-de-Lisé Window, Church ofSt. Nonna, Penmarch.
On our way home we passed, on the left, at Kerscaven, two menhirs, one curiously furrowed and shaped like a half-opened fan.
We had a pretty drive from Pont l'Abbé, with occasional views of the Bay of Audierne, extending from Penmarch to the Pointe du Raz. Midway the horse, going down a steep hill, fell, and we all found ourselves upon the road, but happily unhurt. We met numbers of peasants returning from the fair at Pontcroix; and our driver, a butcher by trade, coolly stopped the vehicle, to discourse with them on the price of stock, and to handle the sheep they had bought. Our drive was enlivened with occasional peeps of the Bay of Audierne till we reached the little port of that name, the view of which is very pretty. Audierne is approached by a bridge across the river or estuary. At its entrance is a lighthouse, and on the right a sandy bay, with bathing-machines in the season.
56. Pointe du Raz.
56. Pointe du Raz.
The town consists of three streets of cut granite houses, with the name of the builder and the date of their construction inscribed over the door. Fishing is the occupation of the inhabitants, and the table-d'hôte at our comfortable, clean, little inn was plentifully supplied with magnificent john dorys, large red mullet, langoustes, and fish of every description.
From Audierne we took a carriage to visit the Pointe du Raz, apromontoryso famous for its rocks and wrecks. We went through a treeless country; near a pretty bay, on the left, is the chapel of Notre Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, destined chiefly for sailors, after which the country becomes more wild, barren, and cheerless. We passed over a bridge which no Breton would dare to cross at night, for fear of being flung by the spirits into the river. According to their belief, a hare appears on the bridge, and terrifies the horses, who throw their rider, and the traveller is dragged by the phantom into the muddy river, where he is kept till morning's dawn, when he is allowed to pursue his way, exhausted with cold, and half dead with fright. They are very superstitious here, as in all Cornouaille. A writer says, "every nation of the earth has its superstitions and absurdities, but Brittany has those of all other nations united." An old woman in a village hard by, said our driver, has never been seen inside the walls of a church; the people say she has sold herself to the evil one, and no one dares go near or speak to her.
On the left is the pretty steeple of the church of Plogoff, situated on an eminence, and dedicated to Saint Collédoc, a Welsh bishop of the sixth century, contemporary of King Arthur, and associated with many of the doings of Queen Guinevre and the knights of the Round Table. Lescoff is the last[pg 272]village we passed through before—after driving over a barren plain—we arrived at the lighthouse, built thirty years back at the Pointe.
We walked thence to the Pointe, a gigantic and magnificent mass of rocks, eighty feet above the level of the sea. We met with a good-natured woman, who led the young people over the rocks to look down the "Enfer de Plogoff." They had a slippery scramble to reach the hole, a kind of tunnel through which the sea rushes with great violence, so much more terrible than that of Penmarch, that the noise has been compared to the distant roaring of some thousands of wild beasts issuing from the depths of a forest. In the mean time, we remained seated on the bank enjoying the view. On the south lay the Bay of Audierne, extending in the form of a crescent, the promontories of Penmarch and Raz forming the extreme points. The currents, and the numerous rocks of the bay, render it a dangerous coast, formerly peopled by barbarous wreckers, who despoiled the shipwrecked mariners as our Cornish men of old. Opposite the Raz, about seven miles distant, is the Island of Sein, and to the right, the Baie des Trépassés. The island of Sein was anciently the seat of an oracle, interpreted by nine Druidesses, who were versed in every art and science. Moreover, they appear to have been accomplished needlewomen; for a Breton chronicler, giving an account of thecoronation[pg 273]of an early king (Erech) at Nantes, describes his mantle as embroidered by these priestesses with figures of Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Their skill in divination caused them to be associated with the fairies; and Morgan—i.e."born of the sea"—one of these priestesses, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, was famous among the British fairies.